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.