The Discarded Read online

  Like she was a surgeon performing a very delicate task, she gently lowered the spoon into her cup and began to stir, releasing wafts of steam into the air.

  “I can see it,” she exclaimed, smiling broadly.

  Seeing the wonder in her eyes and hearing the excitement in her voice, Abraham couldn’t help but smile, too.

  Reluctantly, he looked at his watch again. No way they’d make it on time.

  From his wallet he removed a piece of paper with the emergency number Carter had given him, written in a code only Abraham could read. Not wanting to do it but knowing he had no choice, he entered it into his phone.

  “Quiet now,” he told Tessa. “I have to make a call, okay?”

  Without looking away from her spoon, she nodded.

  His call was answered by an artificially modified voice. “Identify.”

  “W7NJ8,” Abraham said, using his call sign for the job.

  The next voice that came on was not modified.

  “Abraham?” Carter said, his tone strained.

  “I’m here.”

  “Here where?”

  “Transfer.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve got my team on the other line, and you most definitely are not at the transfer point!”

  Abraham looked at Tessa. She was attempting another sip. Though she didn’t jump back this time, she did start stirring again.

  “Thirty minutes out,” he said into the phone. “That’s why I called.”

  “We’ll pick you up. Where are you?”

  “Thirty minutes out,” Abraham repeated. “Tell your people to wait. We’ll be there.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for days. What the hell?”

  A beat. “My phone was damaged, had to ditch it.”

  “You could have called this number.”

  “One-time use. You told me yourself. In my book, that meant saving it for when I would really need it.”

  A tense moment of silence before Carter growled, “Get her here. Fast!”

  “Hold on,” Abraham said. “I didn’t just call to tell you we were going to be late. I also have a question.”

  “A question?”

  “Your answer will determine how smoothly things go from here.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No joke.”

  “Bring the girl in. That’s what you were hired for. Not to ask any questions, remember?”

  Abraham turned his back to Tessa and said in a low voice, “What are you going to do with her?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “You made it my business when you decided it was okay for me to transport human cargo without checking with me first. I need to know I’m not delivering her into something bad, and that she’s going to be fine. So what are you going to do with her?”

  “She’ll be fine, okay? She’s going to live the life of a princess. That satisfy you?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “Bring her in!”

  “I don’t think you want word to get around that you’ve been dealing in child trafficking, now do you?”

  “Oh, you bastard. You are never going to work again, for anyone.”

  Abraham said nothing. Carter was right. He was never going to work in the business again. But it was his choice. He knew no matter what the plans were for Tessa, this job was going to eat away at him every damn day. Better that happened when he didn’t have another mission requiring his attention.

  This was it. He was done.

  Carter finally broke the silence, his voice calmer than it was before. “I get it. You’re concerned. But believe me, we are not trafficking children. Hell, we saved the girl. The initial plan had been to kill both her and her mother.”

  So Tessa had been a target.

  “But none of us wanted that,” Carter went on. “Because of certain circumstances, though, it has to seem like the girl is dead.”

  “Jesus,” Abraham said.

  Tessa had her cup in her hands now and was taking a nice, big gulp.

  “We’ve arranged for her to be taken care of. That’s all I can tell you. No one can know any of this, understand?”

  Carter could have easily been feeding him a story, but Abraham sensed the man was telling the truth.

  “I get it.”

  “Will you bring her in now?”

  “Thirty minutes,” Abraham said and disconnected the call.

  Like he’d done back in Japan, he removed the battery and SIM card, snapping the latter in half.

  “Why’d you do that?” Tessa asked.

  “Wasn’t working right,” he said. “How’s your chocolate?”

  “Good,” she said, a bit of foam on the tip of her nose.

  He saw that her mug was almost empty. “You want another?”

  “I can have more?”

  “We have time.”

  “Yes, please!”

  __________

  ABRAHAM CARRIED TESSA into Rembrandtplein—Rembrandt Square—and headed toward the café where the transfer was to take place.

  His original instructions had been to take a seat inside and he would be contacted, but before he was even close to the café, three men and a woman broke from a crowd of tourists and started walking toward him. He had seen them all before on other jobs but knew only the name of the woman—Desirae Rosette.

  He stopped on the sidewalk a good thirty meters from the café and waited. When the group reached him, Abraham couldn’t help but notice that all the guys had hands in pockets that were probably each gripping a pistol.

  “Good to see you again,” Desirae said, her subtle French accent always making her English sound lyrical. What was lacking, though, was sentiment. As with the handoff team back in Japan, her words were scripted.

  “Long time,” Abraham said. “Did you ever check out that book I recommended?”

  “The Scalzi?”

  “Yeah. The Android’s Dream.”

  “A bit of a twist, but I enjoyed it.”

  They all relaxed a little as the prearranged banter came to an end.

  “I assume you ran into some problems,” Desirae said.

  “Not really,” Abraham replied.

  “Can we get this over with?” one of the guys said. “It’s too damn cold out here.”

  Desirae held out her hands. “I’ll take her.”

  Tessa cried as she buried her face against Abraham’s chest and clutched him tightly.

  He so wanted to walk away while the girl was still in his grasp. He rubbed her back and then asked the others, “Where’s your vehicle?”

  “That’s not your concern,” another guy said.

  “All I’m saying is that it might be easier…” He trailed off, hoping they’d get what he was implying.

  Desirae got the message. “Of course. It’s this way.”

  She headed toward the small street that ran beside the restaurant, while the others seemed content to wait for Abraham to follow her.

  “You first,” he said.

  The guy who’d complained about the cold glared at him, but then he and his friends headed after Desirae. Abraham gave them a head start before following.

  Their vehicle was a minibus, the back section rising high off the ground to make room for a luggage area underneath. The windows were tinted, and as if that weren’t enough, they were also covered by curtains.

  After the door was opened, Desirae and the men entered.

  “No,” Tessa whispered as Abraham neared the vehicle. “I don’t want to go in.”

  His steps faltered. “It’s okay,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about.” Not a lie, per se, more a hope. Still, the words made him feel like he was as guilty as those who had killed her mother.

  He climbed into the van and paused when he reached the central aisle, unsure what he should do next.

  Tessa shook in his arms. He could feel her staccato breaths, ragged and scared. He ran a hand over her hair, trying to calm her, but he couldn’t hide his own
unease. Quietly, she began crying against his shoulder, as if she was afraid if someone heard her, something worse would happen.

  And, of course, it did.

  Desirae, standing next to the driver’s seat, motioned toward a row in the middle of the bus. “You can put her there.”

  Tessa dug her fingers into Abraham’s arms.

  Out of all the things he’d done over his decades in the business, walking down that aisle was the hardest. When he reached the seat, he crouched down and pulled Tessa away from him enough so that he could look her in the eyes.

  Her cheeks were soaked with tears, her mouth a trembling frown.

  He had to believe that no one would harm a girl so young, that Carter hadn’t been lying, and wouldn’t have had Abraham bring her this far just to eliminate her when that could have happened back in Osaka.

  He brushed a hair away from her forehead. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “Remember, this is all about keeping you safe. My friends here are going to help with that.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You remember when you first saw me?”

  A hesitant nod.

  “You didn’t know who I was, but I turned out okay, didn’t I?”

  Another pause, another nod.

  “My friends are okay, too.”

  Her expression darkened again.

  “You’ll see.” He forced a smile on his face. When he could hold it no longer, he lifted her away from him and set her on the seat. “Nice and cushy, huh?”

  She held her arms out to him, her chest heaving with rapid breaths.

  “Hey now,” he said, gently pushing her arms down. “I need you to be a good girl for me. Can you do that?”

  “Stay with me.”

  “I wish I could, but I can’t. I have some other things I need to do.” He could feel his own eyes start to water as words became harder and harder to speak.

  A throat cleared behind him. He wiped his tears before looking back.

  Desirae, her face tense, said, “We’re on a schedule.”

  “Back off,” he mouthed, and then turned to Tessa.

  “Don’t leave,” the girl said.

  He touched her cheek. “You’re going to be fine, Tessa. You’re a strong girl. I’ve seen it. I want you to be strong for me again, okay?”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  No, again, but silent.

  “I know you can do it. Be a strong girl.”

  She sniffled and finally whispered, “Okay.”

  Abraham rose to his feet. “It’s all going to be fine.”

  He turned and started back down the aisle.

  “Abe,” Tessa called.

  He kept walking.

  “Abe!”

  He closed his eyes as he halted, took a deep breath, and looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”

  “When will you come back?” Tessa said.

  He stared at her. There had been things he’d said to her he wasn’t sure were true, but he had never said anything he knew was a lie. Until now. “Someday,” he told her.

  When he reached Desirae, he paused again. “If I ever find out someone has hurt her or treated her badly, I will hunt them down. Understood?”

  “Relax,” Desirae said. “No one’s going to do anything to her.”

  He held her gaze and asked, “Where are you taking her?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  He continued to stare at her for another moment, and then slipped his bag off his shoulder. From inside he pulled out the box they had taken from the house in Japan. “She likes checkers.”

  He forced the box into Desirae’s hands and exited the bus.

  Standard procedure dictated that he immediately leave the area, but he was no longer working from the book of standard procedure. He located a taxi a block away and had the driver wait until the minibus passed by.

  “Follow it,” Abraham said in Dutch.

  The minibus worked its way south through town, and then turned onto a back road to Schiphol, Amsterdam’s international airport. Long before it reached the public terminals, the bus entered the airport through a restricted gate.

  “Do you have a pass to get in there?” the cab driver asked before they reached the turnoff.

  “Just drop me at the side of the road,” Abraham told him.

  “I cannot stop here. There is no place.”

  Abraham threw three times the fare into the front seat and said, “Stop the damn car or I’ll jump out!”

  Flustered, the driver took his foot off the accelerator, slowing the vehicle enough for Abraham to hop out.

  He had to wait for two other cars to go by before he raced across the asphalt to the airport side. There he stopped and looked toward the gate the bus had used.

  “What the hell am I doing?” he whispered.

  The bus was behind the fence, so unless he was thinking about sneaking into an international airport, Tessa and her escorts were already all but gone. Even if he were able to get beyond the barrier, what would that accomplish? They were likely leaving in a private aircraft, and while he might’ve been able to identify the plane, there was no chance he would learn its destination. Whatever paperwork they filed would’ve been falsified to cover their tracks.

  All he really wanted to know was that Tessa would be all right. But how do you know the unknowable?

  Abraham could hear his late friend Durrie’s voice in his head. “Always remember the number one rule for surviving in this business: Never make it personal.”

  Too late for that.

  Far, far too late.

  CHAPTER 3

  FIVE WEEKS LATER

  WASHINGTON, DC

  “WAS I right?” the client asked, her frustration coming through loud and clear over the phone line.

  Ethan Boyer, vice president of special operations at McCrillis International, paused for what he considered an appropriate amount of time before saying, “I can’t help but wish you had come to us in the first place. If the project had been ours, you would have had no lingering doubts.”

  “Was I right?” she asked again.

  “To be concerned? Absolutely.”

  “So you did find proof.”

  “We found indications.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means those we’ve questioned so far weren’t interested in cooperating, which leads me to believe they were hiding something.”

  “Were?”

  He hesitated, confused. “You did order a full wipe-down.”

  Her instructions had been clear. Find out if the operation she’d contracted another organization to perform had been carried out as planned, as the company claimed, or if she hadn’t gotten the whole truth, like she’d begun to suspect. In the process, the McCrillis team was to eliminate everyone associated with the operation so that no one would be left to divulge what had occurred. Which was exactly what Boyer’s specialists were doing.

  “Jesus, Ethan. I know exactly what I ordered. I just want to make sure you’re getting everything out of these sons of bitches before you eliminate them.”

  “We’re dealing with professionals here, so our usual means of information extraction aren’t always as successful. But rest assured, we will find out the truth out of those we’re still processing. That’s why you came to us. Here at McCrillis, client satisfaction is everything.”

  “Can the PR speech. Just find out if they really got rid of the girl or not.”

  “That is our top priority.” He paused. “We have yet to discuss what happens if we find out she’s still alive.”

  “What’s there to discuss? If she is, then I need your people to finish the goddamn job.”

  “It may take some time before we know the truth,” he said, salivating at how lucrative this job could turn out. “Months, maybe more.”

  “I don’t care how long it takes. Find out if I’ve been screwed, and if I have, rectify the situation. Can I be any clearer than that?”


  He smiled. “No, ma’am. Your wishes are fully understood.”

  CHAPTER 4

  PRESENT DAY

  DENMARK

  “AND WE SAID yes to this job because…?” Nate asked.

  Quinn didn’t bother answering. He’d been asking himself the same question and had yet to come up with a decent answer.

  Four times in the last nineteen hours, they had been ordered to move into position, and, as of thirty seconds ago, four times they had been told to stand down.

  “Please tell me we’re not going back to the hotel again,” Daeng said.

  “No,” Quinn said.

  There was no sense in it. With their luck, they’d barely walk into their suite and Winston—the op leader—would call them back.

  “Then I assume neither of you will mind if I stretch out on the floor,” the Thai man said.

  “Oh, by all means,” Nate told him. “Make yourself comfortable. If you’d like, I could grab something for you. A coffee? A stuffed croissant?”

  “A beer would be nice.”

  “Wouldn’t it, though?”

  Quinn pushed himself away from the wall and headed for the door.

  “Where you going?” Nate asked.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Hey, if you’re actually going for coffee, wouldn’t mind a cup myself.”

  Quinn glanced at him, not amused, before stepping into the hallway.

  The building they were waiting in was being renovated, all the floors ripped apart and at various stages of being put back together again. Their floor, the second, was full of half-finished walls and bare concrete.

  He walked all the way to the large room at the south end of the building and called Orlando back in San Francisco.

  “Guess what?” he said when she answered.

  She groaned. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with these people?”

  “I was kind of hoping you could tell me that. Did you get ahold of Helen?”

  “I tried,” Orlando said. “She hasn’t called back.”

  Helen Cho was the head of the organization that had hired Quinn’s team for the job.

  “You think she’s avoiding you?” he asked.

  “I’m beginning to.”