The Discarded

by Brett Battles

  “King, you and Andres go to the other side and work your way in. Nolan and I will take this end.”

  They jumped out of the car and rushed around to the back, where they equipped themselves with pistols and ear-mounted radios.

  “Backpack?” Andres asked.

  Gloria nodded. “Bring it.”

  The pack contained several specialized items such as flash bangs, tear gas, disposable gas masks, lock picks, and knives. Since they didn’t know what they were getting into, it was best to be prepared.

  As King and Andres hustled off to their assigned entry point, Gloria and Nolan moved into the jungle near the back of the car. Since they were far enough away from the house, Gloria decided to sacrifice stealth for speed, not slowing until she estimated they were level with the house.

  While she expected to find a fence, it was telling that the one surrounding house number six’s property was topped by two strands of razor wire. Since the wire cutters were in the pack with Andres, she looked around for an alternate way over and spotted a tree that would do the trick. It didn’t have any branches that went over the fence, but its trunk was solid enough for her to push off from as she leaped over the fence. After Nolan joined her, they continued toward the house.

  From the driveway gate she’d been able to see one car parked in the driveway, but her new vantage point revealed there were two. She crept between the vehicles to the lanai that surrounded the house. Lights were on in the room at this end, but the windows were covered by a sheer fabric that made it hard for her to see anything distinct inside. She moved to the back of the house to check for a better way of getting a glimpse of the interior. Before she got there, she noted a structure near the back corner of the lot, half hidden among the trees. A shed maybe, or a guesthouse.

  She sent Nolan to check it out and returned her attention to the main house.

  The back had large windows but they were all covered by opaque curtains. Quietly, she climbed up on the lanai and moved back around to one of the windows covered only by sheers. As she neared, she heard a man’s voice in the house, which meant at least two people were home.

  She moved directly under the window and slowly rose enough to look inside.

  __________

  ABRAHAM WATCHED TESSA open the bathroom cabinet and press something inside. She then grabbed the top and pulled. The whole cabinet swung out as if it weighed nothing at all, revealing a three-by-three-foot hole in the wall.

  “This way,” she said as she slipped through the opening.

  Abraham had to crouch way down to follow her, something his body wasn’t exactly happy about, but he made it through with only a small scrape of his shoulder. On the other side was a set of narrow wooden stairs leading down into darkness.

  “Tessa?” he asked.

  “Down here,” she said.

  A flashlight winked on a dozen feet below him, lighting up the girl’s face and part of a passageway leading to the left.

  “Where does this go?” he asked when he reached the bottom.

  “Shh. We’re not supposed to talk,” she whispered.

  As she started to move off, he said, “What about the way we came in? Do we need to close it?”

  “Mom will get it. Now come on, and stay quiet.”

  He followed her down the tunnel.

  “Careful,” she whispered about a minute later. “Slopes down here.”

  She shone the light above her and he saw what she meant. Not only did the floor angle downward, but the ceiling did, too.

  “How far does this go?” he asked once they were level again.

  “Shh. I told you—no talking.”

  After another dip, the tunnel went on for an additional fifty feet or so before ending at a second set of stairs. Like the others, these had been cut right into the dirt and covered by boards. At the top was a trapdoor.

  As Tessa started up, Abraham said, “Let me go first.”

  She considered it for a second before nodding and moving out of the way.

  “There’s a lock,” she whispered into his ear. “Twist to the right and pull down.”

  “Got it.”

  As soon as he had a hand on the lock, Tessa doused her flashlight. Following her instructions, he twisted and pulled, then ever so slowly pushed up the door.

  Small clumps of dirt and dried leaves rained down on him as the opening widened. The door, though, was remarkably quiet. When it was high enough for him to stick his head above ground level, he took a look around. The dark jungle was everywhere, not only to the sides but above, too, blotting out most of the sky. As for noise, the only thing he could hear was the gentle wind whooshing through the trees.

  With a wave for Tessa to follow, he climbed out.

  “Where are we?” he whispered, after she shut the door.

  She pointed to the right. “My house is over there, but we go this way.”

  She turned in the opposite direction and flicked her flashlight back on, keeping the beam pointed at the ground right in front of her.

  “Stay close,” she whispered as she started walking.

  __________

  THOUGH THE OUTBUILDING was only a garden shed, Nolan knew better than to return to his boss without giving it a full inspection.

  As he turned along the back side, he heard voices, too low to understand. They had come from beyond the back fence. He cocked his head.

  There it was again. A quick little spurt.

  Then quiet.

  What he heard next was not talking but the movement of bushes, like someone passing through.

  He moved back around the building, putting it between him and the noise, before activating his mic.

  “There’s someone in the jungle beyond the fence,” he reported.

  “A neighbor?” his boss asked.

  “Not sure,” he told her. “You want me to come back or check?”

  “Check.”

  __________

  DESIRAE RACED INTO the kitchen with Quinn only a few feet behind her. She opened a drawer, cursed, and started opening others.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  She angrily pushed another drawer closed. “My tablet computer. It should be right…” She froze, her gaze on the ceiling. After a second, she groaned and said, “Right.”

  Reversing course into the living room, she ran over to a cabinet next to the back wall. There were several books on it, mostly textbooks by the looks of them, along with spiral binders and a thin stack of loose pages. Desirae began rifling through everything, finally finding the computer under a white three-ring binder.

  “I hope to hell that’s important,” he said.

  “All my pictures of Terri are on here. I’m not leaving it for them to find.”

  She grabbed the empty book bag that was lying on the floor, stuffed the tablet in it, and slung it over her shoulder.

  “That it?” he asked.

  She nodded, and together they raced back to the hallway.

  __________

  GLORIA LOOKED THROUGH the window just in time to see a man run into a room on the left. She could hear muffled voices and the slamming of a drawer, and knew the woman must be with him.

  The receiver in her ear emitted a soft beat, and then Nolan reported hearing someone in the wild area beyond the property.

  “You want me to come back or check?” he asked.

  “Check,” she said.

  A few seconds later, as she continued observing through the window, a woman ran into the main room, carrying a Tavor assault rifle. High end. Not easy to obtain. When the man followed her out, Gloria saw that he was similarly equipped, but that was not the most interesting thing about him.

  He was none other than Jonathan Quinn, the same son of a bitch who had disabled her team and almost killed her.

  She sank below the window ledge and turned on her mic. “You’re going to like this, boys. One of our friends from the other day, the main guy—he’s inside. The other two may be here, too, but I haven�
�t seen them yet. Nolan, after you check out that noise, get back here as soon as you can. Unit two, meet me on the east side of the house.”

  __________

  NOLAN USED AN empty barrel near the shed to get over the fence, and was well into the forest when Gloria made her announcement.

  Despite her orders, he almost turned back. He didn’t want to miss any of the action, especially if it meant getting some licks in at the men who’d surprised them in Virginia. But orders were orders.

  He found a trail about thirty yards back. It went down a gentle slope for a hundred feet or so before going over a ridge to the right. The valley on the other side was dark, no signs of habitation. Once more, he almost turned back, but a brief but very real flash of light on some bushes farther down the slope stopped him. He increased his pace as much as he could without drawing attention.

  About a minute later, he saw the light again, but not only the beam this time. The person holding the light source walked through a gap in the brush.

  The halo was wide enough that he could see a second person, too. Judging by their shapes, the one following was a man, maybe six feet tall, while the one holding the flashlight was considerably smaller. His first thought was a petite woman, but she seemed small even for that.

  Then it hit him.

  A girl.

  No, he thought. It couldn’t be.

  But back at the house was a man who was tangentially connected to the girl they were hunting. Nolan kept watching, hoping to get another look at the two people, but they had been swallowed up by the jungle.

  She had been about the right size.

  He let the thought stew for another moment before clicking on his mic. “This is Nolan. I may have found something you’ll be very interested in.”

  CHAPTER 34

  “THE BOTTOM STEP lifts up,” Desirae said. “You’ll find some flashlights underneath.”

  They were in the guest bathroom, standing near the entrance to the escape tunnel.

  “Nate, take point,” Quinn said.

  Nate ducked through the hole and vanished down the steps.

  “You next,” Quinn told Orlando.

  __________

  GLORIA RENDEZVOUSED WITH King and Andres less than a minute after she’d called for them.

  “Consider all targets hostile,” she said. “All I need is one of them alive enough to talk. Understood?”

  Both men nodded.

  “They’re somewhere in the back of the house,” she said. “We locate first and then neutralize the problem. You two go back around the front, I’ll take the rear, and we’ll meet on the west side.”

  Staying on the lanai, Gloria hurried past the living room to the only window between it and the far corner, and peeked in. No lights on, but enough illumination leaking in from the hallway to discern the shape of a twin bed and a dresser. This room was too small to be the main bedroom. Turning down the west side, she found another window looking into the same bedroom, but it provided no more help.

  A moment later, King and Andres appeared at the other end.

  When they met in the middle, she whispered, “I take it they’re hiding in the master bedroom.”

  “You didn’t find them?” King asked, surprised. “They weren’t in the rooms we checked.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Dammit.”

  She motioned for Andres to turn around, then pulled out the lock-pick set, three disposable masks, a couple of flash-bang grenades, and a tear gas canister. The last she kept for herself, while handing a flash bang each to the two men.

  They hurried around to the door into the living room. Gloria picked the lock and they all pulled on their masks.

  Just loud enough for her men to hear, she said, “One, two, three.”

  She shoved the door open and rushed across the living room to the hallway entrance. Immediately, Andres and King tossed their grenades toward the bedrooms.

  Bang! Bang!

  The double explosion filled the house with sound and light.

  Gloria pulled the pin on the tear gas canister and lobbed the can to the back of the hallway. With a hiss, smoky gas began to fill the rooms.

  She waited for the first cough, knowing it would come in a matter of seconds, but all remained quiet. She gave it another few moments, and then raised her gun and led her men to the back of the house. When they reached the end of the hall, they each took one of the rooms.

  “Clear!” King called from the hallway bathroom.

  “Clear!” Andres called from the smaller bedroom.

  “Shit,” Gloria said as she stood in the deserted master bedroom, then added, “Clear.” She reentered the hallway. “Where the hell did they go?”

  Before anyone could venture a guess, her earpiece beeped.

  “This is Nolan. I may have found something you’ll be very interested in.”

  “I sure as hell hope so. We haven’t found crap here.”

  He told her about the man and the girl, and then floated the possibility of who she might be.

  Andres’s eyes widened. “In here,” he said, then disappeared inside the second bedroom.

  “Did you hear me?” Nolan asked.

  “Just a second,” she told him as she followed Andres.

  Lights were now on in the room, so there was no mistaking it for anything but what it was: a preteen girl’s bedroom.

  Not proof. Not even close. But in her bones, Gloria could feel everything aligning.

  I’m so close.

  “Nolan, stay on her,” she ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  Gloria and Andres returned to the hallway and found King waiting for them. As they started toward the living room, she noticed something odd.

  The haze in the bedrooms had hung in the air, hardly drifting at all, but in the hall, it was being drawn into the bathroom.

  She looked inside, thinking the window must be open, but it wasn’t, nor was the gas moving in its direction. It was drifting toward the sink. More accurately, it appeared as if it was being sucked in around the cabinet the sink was in.

  “Hold this.” She shoved her rifle at King and then pulled the cabinet doors open. She was fully expecting to see no back panel, but it was there like it should be. Odder still, there was no smoke in the cabinet.

  She ran a finger along the seam where the counter met the wall and felt a slight separation that continued all the way around the side. She gripped the countertop and gave the cabinet a yank but it didn’t move.

  “Give me a hand,” she said.

  King and Andres set down their weapons and grabbed on. The cabinet creaked when they pulled, and the gap between it and the wall increased to nearly a quarter inch, but that was all they got.

  “There has to be a release,” she said, checking under the lip of the countertop.

  Nothing there, so she felt along the sides of the box, and then opened the doors again and searched the inner frame.

  “Ha!” she yelled as her finger touched a button.

  She pushed it and felt the vibration of something releasing.

  When she yanked the cabinet again, it moved effortlessly away from the wall, revealing a hole and the top few steps of a staircase.

  “Grab your guns. Time to go hunting.”

  __________

  THE MUFFLED BOOM of the grenades echoed down the tunnel, but they were all too well trained to stop and look back.

  “How much farther?” Quinn asked Desirae.

  “Not too much.”

  Another minute on, they heard a noise in the distance, a kind of groan.

  Quinn looked back at Desirae, an eyebrow raised.

  “Keep going,” she said.

  Several moments later, they heard footsteps on the planks covering the stairs behind them. Without saying anything, they picked up their speed. As soon as they reached the end, Nate raced up the stairs and, following Desirae’s directions, shoved the d
oor open.

  “Nate and I can pin them down here while you two catch up to Tessa and Abraham,” Quinn said to Orlando and Desirae as soon as they were out and the door was closed. “Let me know as soon as you’ve gotten them out of here and we’ll join you.” He looked at Nate. “Pistols only, and spread out so if they throw a grenade it doesn’t get both—”

  A faint but unmistakable scream cut him off.

  Desirae twisted toward the sound. “That’s Tessa,” she said as she ran into the jungle.

  Orlando took off after her.

  Quinn and Nate hesitated. The trapdoor provided the perfect chokehold to tie down their pursuers, but the others must have split their forces and sent some into the jungle. How many? No way to know, but the most pressing danger was clearly to Tessa.

  Quinn looked at his partner and saw Nate was thinking the same thing.

  Without a word, they headed into the jungle.

  __________

  AS ABRAHAM REACHED out to push a branch to the side, his foot slipped on a loose bit of ground. He staggered forward, the branch he’d been trying to avoid slapping him in the face, and was just barely able to keep himself from falling.

  “Are you okay?” Tessa asked, looking back.

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Let’s keep going.”

  She eyed him, as if unsure whether or not to believe him, before turning back to the path and moving on.

  It was surreal, him being here with her on the run again. Hell, him finding her, seeing her once more when he thought he never would—that was the most surreal part. In those times when he felt sure she was still alive, that he couldn’t have transported her thousands of miles only for her to be killed later, his mind would still not give him a happy ending. An endless string of horrible alternate possibilities intruded—neglect, violent and mental abuse, forced servitude, prostitution.

  Thank God none had been true. It was obvious Desirae loved the girl and had given Tessa as close to a normal life as she could, while preparing the girl to deal with the very real possibility that the danger that had taken her birth mother would return.