The Discarded

by Brett Battles

  Another pause. “An incursion.”

  “Any casualties?”

  “None, sir.”

  “Any idea why they were there?”

  “Sir, I should really be speaking to—”

  “Please answer my question, Ms. Clark.”

  “Yes, sir. They came to get the man we were questioning.”

  “And did they?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Davis said nothing for a moment. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on. I’ve barely had time to take a breath, let alone go through Boyer’s files.”

  “Sir, where is Mr. Boyer? I’m sure he’s expecting me to update—”

  “He’s dead.”

  She had been walking across the ground-floor room toward the exit, but his words stopped her in her tracks. “Dead? How?”

  “He was in his house when it burned down.”

  “Jesus. Was it an accident?”

  “Unlikely. His security team was found unconscious in the backyard. They’d apparently been drugged.”

  Drugged? She’d been unable to revive King while they waited for the response team, which had led her to believe he was drugged.

  Quinn, she thought. If he’d played a role in her boss’s death, it would certainly explain how he’d found out where she was.

  “Ms. Clark, are you there?”

  She blinked. “Uh, sorry, sir. I’m here.”

  “I need to know exactly what you’re working on.”

  “It’s a KV job, sir.” KV was McCrillis’s highest secrecy designation, meaning phone conversations about it were strongly discouraged.

  “Of course it is, goddammit. Fine. Get your ass in here as quickly as you can and give me a full report. I’ll be in my office.”

  WASHINGTON, DC

  GLORIA STOOD ON the other side of Davis’s desk as she filled him in on her assignment. The offer to sit had not been extended, nor would she have accepted it if it had. Though one of Foster’s men had patched her up before she left Virginia, she’d refused any pain medication, so it felt like she had a hot poker constantly pressed against her side and sitting made it worse.

  “So the job is to find out if the girl is alive or not?” Davis interrupted, apparently having a hard time comprehending the mission.

  “Part one, yes,” she said, working hard to maintain her patience.

  “And what is part two?”

  Her training made her not want to answer the question, but with Boyer out of the picture she had no choice. “If she’s still alive, eliminate her.”

  “A child.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She would have understood if he looked disgusted, but instead he appeared merely annoyed as he said, “And do we know why?”

  “That’s not part of the job, sir,” she told him, though she actually did know the answer.

  “Unbelievable. Who approved this?”

  “The client has worked with McCrillis for many years, sir, and I do believe a premium is being paid for this project.”

  “As well it should be.” He reached for his phone. “Please step into my waiting area. I’ll call you back in when I’m ready.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and headed for the exit.

  As she entered the waiting area, she heard Davis say, “Don? This is Perry. We have a situation here that I need a little…”

  After the door closed behind her, she could hear him no longer, but she had no doubt who he was talking to.

  Donald McCrillis. President and CEO of McCrillis International.

  The corner of her mouth ticked up.

  Exactly seven minutes after she stepped out of Davis’s office, the door opened.

  “Please come back in,” Davis said, his tone contrite.

  As she entered, she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the text on the screen.

  Davis. Keep it natural.

  There was no sender’s name, only a number she was sure belonged to a burner phone. It didn’t matter. She knew it was from Don McCrillis.

  In a few hours, when the sun came up, instead of being down one vice president, McCrillis International would be down two.

  “Ms. Clark, please have a seat.”

  She smiled and lowered herself into the chair.

  CHAPTER 26

  TAMPA, FLORIDA

  ORLANDO’S ALARM WENT off at 6:30 a.m., barely four hours after she’d fallen asleep.

  Forcing herself up, she shuffled into the shower, shocking her body first with cold water and then gradually adding some heat. By the time she was toweling off, she felt like she probably wouldn’t spontaneously fall asleep in the next fifteen minutes. Anything beyond that, all bets were off.

  Coffee. She needed coffee. Now.

  Forgoing even the small amount of makeup she usually wore, she ran her fingers through her hair, pulled on some clothes, and headed downstairs to the coffee shop in the lobby. She knew there would be a line—there were always lines at hotel coffee shops, no matter the time of day—but what she didn’t expect to see was Abraham sitting at one of the small tables out front, sipping from a cup and eating a muffin.

  Orlando purchased her coffee, waited for it to be prepared, and then joined her former mentor.

  “You did get some sleep, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “More than enough,” he replied. “The older you get, the less you need.”

  “Then I need to get older fast.”

  A small grin, but no snide comment. That wasn’t like him.

  She stirred her coffee and gave it a taste. A little too hot still, but she was willing to risk a scorched mouth for the brew’s revitalizing effects.

  “I…I tried again,” he said.

  “Tried what?”

  He touched the phone sitting next to his half-eaten muffin. “The number. I tried again.”

  “And?”

  “Same as before,” he said, disappointed.

  “Whoever it belonged to probably tossed their phone.”

  He nodded in reluctant agreement. “It’s just…whoever Eli called was trying to help him. So that has to mean they know something about Tessa, doesn’t it? I thought…I mean…” He took a breath and picked up his coffee. “I don’t know where we go from here.”

  “I might,” she said.

  He looked at her, hope creeping into his eyes. “Did you find something?”

  She held up a hand. “Can I finish my coffee first?”

  __________

  DESPITE ABRAHAM’S PERSISTENT questioning, she refused to go into further detail until they were back in her room.

  Once she woke up her laptop, she brought up the files Eli put on the memory card for the members of Operation Overtake. “According to Eli, three are dead,” she said. “I double-checked and he was right. These other two, though, were only listed as missing. Akira Hayashi and Desirae Rosette. I checked to see if either of them had taken any jobs after Overtake but found none. Granted, I didn’t have a ton of time so it wasn’t a thorough search, but it was enough of a sample to form my opinion. Before I went to sleep, I set up a few search bots. First, to see if any unidentified bodies had been recovered in the months following the job that matched either of them, and second, to hunt down any personal information such as friends and family who they might get in contact with.”

  “What did they find?”

  “Have no idea.” She moved the cursor across the screen. “Shall we take a look?”

  She accessed the server where the bots had dumped their information into presorted files. She checked Hayashi first. During the time frame she had specified, three male bodies had been recovered in Japan with the correct height and general size. The one discovered nearly three months after the operation was the most intriguing.

  It had been found in the wreckage of a building fire. Though the body had been severely burnt, the medical examiner found that the man had been shot in the back of the head and not recently. The doctor was able to extract some cells that h
adn’t been wrecked by the fire, and discovered damage usually associated with extreme cold. To Orlando this meant only one possibility—the victim had been killed, put on ice, and, after a desired amount of time had passed, placed in a building that was then set ablaze.

  “I’ve seen this method before,” Orlando said. “And if you ask me, that’s Hayashi.”

  It took Abraham a bit longer to finish reading the file. When he did, he said, “I think you’re right.”

  Orlando moved on to the files that might be the woman. There were four bodies—three in Canada and one in France.

  “Why did you include Canada?” Abraham asked.

  “That’s where Desirae is from.”

  “I thought she was French.”

  “French-Canadian. She’s from Quebec.”

  “Oh,” he said, surprised.

  Orlando went through the reports one by one, but while they found some similarities in each to Desirae Rosette, none was a perfect match.

  “Could be they never found her body,” Abraham said.

  She nodded. “Could be.”

  She opened the file where information pertaining to Desirae’s personal life had been gathered. There were only a few names—a half dozen acquaintances in the business, and the name of a civilian woman the bots had dug out of a deep NSA file. The name was Nadine Chastain, and the search indicated an 85% chance of the woman being Desirae’s mother. She lived in the town of Lac-Saint-Charles, north of Quebec City.

  Orlando first checked to see how long Chastain had lived in Lac-Saint-Charles—nearly forty years at the same house—and then found the name of a local newspaper. She searched through the obituaries for the years right after Operation Overtake.

  Five and a half months after the job was over, there was a small, two-paragraph obituary for a woman identified as Nadine’s daughter. An accident overseas. No memorial service scheduled. Most interesting of all was the daughter’s name. Desirae.

  After letting Abraham read what she’d found, Orlando said, “So, how do you feel about a trip to Canada?”

  PENNSYLVANIA

  QUINN STAYED AS far to the side of the two-lane road as he could get without stepping off the asphalt. The temperature the day before had topped out at forty-five degrees, and it was supposed to reach the same level again today, allowing the softening ground and melting snow to form a dark muck that seemed hell bent on tugging his shoes off his feet.

  The morning traffic was heavy, most of it going north toward the two factories outside Welton, Pennsylvania, the small town where Quinn, Nate, and Daeng had spent the night. The convenience store that the motel clerk had directed Quinn to was just up ahead. Quinn could have driven, but being on foot gave him a better chance to look around and make sure no one was keeping tabs on them.

  After his and Nate’s encounters in Maryland and Virginia the night before, he was sure they would be on McCrillis’s most wanted list, but Quinn thought it unlikely someone from there would come as far as Pennsylvania to look for them. Still, prudence was always the best course.

  At the store, he purchased orange juice, fruit labeled FRESH FROM FLORIDA, and some bagels, then made his way back.

  Nate looked up from the computer when Quinn entered the room. “Any problems?”

  Quinn shook his head. “We’re clean.”

  Nate pointed at the laptop. “Story here about Boyer. ‘Hilltop House Fire. One Dead.’ Doesn’t call him by name, ‘pending notification of next of kin,’ but says he was trying to get out when he was consumed by smoke. No mention of the guards. Think they’re going the natural-causes route.”

  Quinn tossed one of the bottles of orange juices to Daeng, who was sitting up on one of the beds.

  “Much appreciated,” Daeng said.

  “Picked up some fruit and bagels, too.” Quinn set the bag on the other bed. “But I’m not serving anyone.”

  “Cream cheese?” Nate asked.

  “Sorry.”

  “How are we supposed to eat a bagel without cream cheese?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  Orlando called as Quinn was helping himself to a tangerine.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning back,” she replied. “How’s the patient?”

  Quinn glanced at Daeng. “You know him—always the same. What about Eli’s stuff? Anything of interest there?”

  “Lots, actually.” She told him what they’d found, then said, “We’re going to check out the potential mother. Should be there in the afternoon.”

  “You want company?”

  “We could always use company.”

  “I’ll see what I can work out.”

  CHAPTER 27

  WASHINGTON, DC

  THERE WAS NO missing the somber mood when Gloria returned to McCrillis headquarters at 9:15 a.m. First the news of Ethan Boyer dying in a house fire, and then the discovery of Perry Davis in his office, collapsed over his desk, dead from an apparent heart attack.

  Gloria felt a tinge of guilt about the secretary who’d found him, but that was the way it had to happen to sell the scene.

  She exchanged a word or two here and there with people she knew, but avoided any lengthy conversations as she made her way to see Toby Martinez, assistant deputy head of research and her main contact in the department. He was on the phone when she walked into his office, but he waved her in and motioned for her to take a seat.

  “Yeah, right…okay. Got it. Give me at least an hour. Two would be better….Thanks.” He was smiling as he talked, but as soon as he hung up, it seemed as if the weight of the world had just fallen on his shoulders. “You heard the news, right?”

  “I heard.”

  “Man, two people in one night. What are the odds? And both VPs, too.” He looked at her with a start. “Crap. Boyer was your boss. I’m really sorry.”

  “Me, too. He was a good guy.”

  “Fire. What a way to go.”

  Though she had not seen the true reports yet, she was positive fire was not the way her boss had gone. She said nothing.

  Martinez shook his head and leaned back. “So you’re here about the stuff in the suitcase?”

  “Yeah.”

  He clicked around his computer for a moment, and then turned the screen so she could read the report he’d brought up.

  “Sorry,” he said. “They were all clean. Nothing hidden.”

  That was disappointing.

  Becker had been keeping information somewhere, she was sure of it.

  “Well, thanks for taking a look. E-mail me a copy when you get a chance.”

  She started to get up.

  “Hold on,” he said. “You don’t want to know about the phone number?”

  “Phone number?” she asked, lowering herself again.

  He stared at her as if she might be crazy. “You put in a request to look into any calls Becker made or received before he fled.”

  “Right,” she said, remembering. It had been a routine request, and not high priority after Becker was in her custody.

  Martinez hit a few more keys and a new report came up listing six phone numbers.

  “This is his call log for the twenty-four-hour period you asked about,” he said. “Not a big talker, apparently. Most recent first, with outgoing in green and incoming in red.”

  Becker had placed four calls and received two.

  He pointed at the top number, an outgoing call that occurred at 12:41 p.m. the afternoon he left town. “This number is for his office. We used a contact to check the records and apparently he’d called in sick.”

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “It is.” He pointed at the second number on the list, another outgoing that occurred at 12:03 p.m. the same day. “With the exception of this one, all the calls were from the previous day. The two incoming calls were from his doctor and the Red Cross blood donation line—and before you ask, the number’s confirmed. One of the outgoing was also his doctor, and the other to a Chinese place
around dinnertime. Again, that number has been confirmed. This is the interesting one.” He pointed once more at the second from the top. “It’s a dummy. No number exists, and yet he was on the line for two minutes.” He looked at her. “Talks to someone at a nonexistent number, thirty minutes later he calls in sick, and then he leaves town? My opinion, whoever he talked to on this call”—he tapped the number again—“warned him to get out of town.”

  Exactly the way she saw it.

  Finally, a real break. Whoever warned Becker had to know about the girl. It was likely the person knew more than the late analyst. “I need to know where that call came from,” she said.

  “Without a number, it would be extremely difficult.”

  “But not impossible.”

  He hemmed and hawed for a moment before he smiled. “Nothing’s ever impossible. My boys are already working on it. In fact, they’ve gotten a partial trace already.”

  Martinez loved to make a problem seem insurmountable before giving a solution. She’d learned long ago it was easier to play into this than fight it. “That’s fantastic,” she said. “Please extend my thanks to your team. So, what have they learned?”

  “Well, there were a lot of bounces and reroutes, but they’ve narrowed down the location to this.” He opened a map on his screen.

  “What am I looking at?” she asked.

  “Here. This’ll help.”

  He widened the map, and water appeared at one edge of the land, and then at another and another until she finally recognized the area.

  “That’s Hawaii.”

  “Specifically a four-hundred-square-mile area of Oahu,” he clarified.

  “I think your guys must have made a mistake. This is a perfect bounce location. It must go somewhere else.”

  “I thought the same thing, but it’s not a bounce. They’ve checked it a dozen times. This is where the signal ended.”

  “Hawaii.”

  “Oahu.”

  She was having trouble buying it, but in the years she’d worked for McCrillis, Martinez had never let her down.

  “Four hundred square miles? Any chance of narrowing that down?” she asked.