The Discarded

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.”

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.