Brett Battles
The Discarded
This is for my wonderful editor Elyse
For making me sound better than I could ever hope
CHAPTER 1
Abraham Delger wondered once more if it might be time to get out of the game.
His latest assignment, like most of those he’d been forced to take in the last year or so, had nothing to do with his communications and tech expertise. He could see the reason every time he looked in a mirror. His sixtieth birthday was five weeks behind him. In a world that favored the young, he was an anomaly. When it came to tech work, most clients refused to believe someone his age would even be aware of the latest breakthroughs, let alone understand how to utilize them.
So, in the past twenty-six months, he’d served as a decoy driver, a lookout, a contact point, and a consultant who ended up sitting in a back room throughout a whole operation, the only questions thrown his way having to do with directions to the bathroom and did he know where the op lead was.
And now this.
“I need someone I can trust implicitly,” Gavin Carter had told him. The man had flown out to San Diego to meet with Abraham in person. Nobody did that anymore. “I need someone to do the task and not ask any questions. Now or later. Someone I can keep off the books. A link breaker. You’re the only person I trust to do this for me.”
It was unfair, really. Abraham had no doubt there were others who could’ve handled the job. The reality was, Carter was leaning heavily on a debt owed by Abraham that could never be fully repaid, so the older man had had no choice but to say yes.
And that yes had brought him to an abandoned doorway, not far from Osaka Bay, that only partially sheltered him from the rain while he waited to take possession of the package he was to transport — no questions asked.
A damn courier.
About as far down the food chain as an op could get.
The roar of the downpour made it nearly impossible for him to hear anything else. The rain had been falling like this since well before the sun went down, the kind of rain Abraham only expected to see in the tropics, when the remnants of a typhoon temporarily laid claim to the air and the land. The difference was, a tropical storm was warm. This one, not so much. Another few degrees colder and he was sure it’d turn to sleet.
He scanned the road but there were still no signs of vehicles in either direction, only the halos of light from the scattered streetlamps. This was not a neighborhood someone would just drive into, especially during a storm.
He checked his watch. Only a few minutes before eleven now, smack dab in the middle of the twenty-minute window when the drop was supposed to occur. He knew the weather wasn’t helping, but it didn’t matter. If the deadline passed without the package arriving, he would be gone. That was the way it was in the espionage business. Sticking around could mean capture or death, and Abraham had already put in too many years to risk either option.
The minutes continued to tick by, inching ever closer to time to go.
He adjusted his coat, his mind already preparing for his exit. A dash around to the back of the building, jump in his appropriated car, and good-bye, Osaka.
The rumble almost sounded like distant thunder, but this wasn’t that kind of storm. He looked down the road. The darkness held for another few minutes before twin headlight beams lit up one of the buildings several blocks down. A moment later, a delivery truck turned onto the road.
As the vehicle neared, he could make out writing on the side below a cartoon image of a smiling woman with stars streaming out of her mouth. While Abraham could speak Japanese enough to get by in a pinch, his ability to read the language was limited to the words for toilet and exit and tickets, so he had no idea what the truck was advertising.
Right on cue, the vehicle slowed and blinked its headlights once. Abraham made no immediate move to approach it, content to stay in the semi-protection of the alcove until the last possible moment.
With a hiss of air brakes, the truck stopped at the curb. Abraham waited for its occupants to make the first move, but the doors of the cabin remained closed.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
He popped open his compact umbrella and walked around to the driver’s door. The man behind the wheel stared at him through the rain-dappled window and then pointed at the cargo area.
Because of Carter’s no-questions mandate, Abraham had no idea how large a package he was picking up. He’d assumed it would be small enough to carry, so the fact that it was in the back instead of the cab troubled him.
A rod-and-latch system held the rear doors in place. Abraham boosted himself up onto the bumper, grabbed the handle, and opened one of the doors.
“Whoa,” he said, raising the hand that held the umbrella.
Three men were inside, two aiming rifles at Abraham. Abraham’s first thought was that the mission had been a lie, that its real purpose had been his elimination. It happened now and then, an operative needing to be taken out for any number of reasons. And though he couldn’t immediately come up with anything he’d done or witnessed that would necessitate his termination, he thought his time had come.
For a moment he considered jumping down and running, but then the unarmed man in the middle said, “You a sci-fi fan?”
The authentication code, Abraham realized. “I’ve been known to dabble,” he recited his line.
“James White — ever heard of him?”
“One of my favorites. All Judgment Fled is a forgotten classic.”
“Stand down,” the man said.
The armed men lowered their weapons to their sides.
So maybe this wasn’t Abraham’s last day on earth after all.
He started to pull himself inside but the main guy said, “Stay there.”
“It’s a little wet,” Abraham said.
“You won’t be here long enough to dry off.”
The man walked to the far end of the enclosed space and knelt down. Abraham tried to see what he was doing but the interior light was too dim. When the guy headed back, he was carrying something in his arms. It was about three feet long, maybe six or seven inches thick, and wrapped in some kind of material. To Abraham, it looked like a gigantic loaf of bread.
As the man transferred the package to him, he said, “Good luck.”
The first thing Abraham noticed was that it was warm. And the second—
“What the hell?” he said as the package moved in his arms.
“The sedative will keep her out for another four or five hours at least,” the man said. “Now get the hell out of here.”
He grabbed the door and started to pull it closed. When Abraham didn’t immediately jump out of the way, the man said, “Do your job.”
A million questions raced through Abraham’s mind, but he knew the man would give him no answers.
I need someone to do the task and not ask any questions.
“Dammit,” Abraham muttered as he stepped off the bumper.
The door shut with a slam, and before Abraham could snap out of his shock, the truck pulled away.
As he blinked, his gaze strayed down to the package. The material was a blanket, he realized. A suddenly very wet blanket. That was enough to get him hurrying over to the building and down the narrow alley to the back. Not sure how fast a getaway he’d need to make, he’d left the driver’s door unlocked. Unfortunately, he hadn’t done the same with those in back. He awkwardly worked the front door open and then punched the button unlocking the rest.
As quickly as he could, he maneuvered the bundle onto the backseat. He then started to climb back out but stopped himself. He touched the end of the blanket closest to him and felt legs and feet, so he leaned in and pulled the other side open, exposing a small, slack face.