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.