The Discarded Read Online Free PDF

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.
    All he really wanted to know was that Tessa would be all right. But how do you know the unknowable?
    Abraham could hear his late friend Durrie’s voice in his head. “Always remember the number one rule for surviving in this business: Never make it personal.”
    Too late for that.
    Far, far too late.

CHAPTER 3
     
    FIVE WEEKS LATER
    WASHINGTON, DC
     
    “W AS I right?” the client asked, her frustration coming through loud and clear over the phone line.
    Ethan Boyer, vice president of special operations at McCrillis International, paused for what he considered an appropriate amount of time before saying, “I can’t help but wish you had come to us in the first place. If the project had been ours, you would have had no lingering doubts.”
    “Was I right ?” she asked again.
    “To be concerned? Absolutely.”
    “So you did find proof.”
    “We found indications.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means those we’ve questioned so far weren’t interested in cooperating, which leads me to believe they were hiding something.”
    “ Were ?”
    He hesitated, confused. “You did order a full wipe-down.”
    Her instructions had been clear. Find out if the operation she’d contracted another organization to perform had been carried out as planned, as the company claimed, or if she hadn’t gotten the whole truth, like she’d begun to suspect. In the process, the McCrillis team was to eliminate everyone associated with the operation so that no one would be left to divulge what had occurred. Which was exactly what Boyer’s specialists were doing.
    “Jesus, Ethan. I know exactly what I ordered. I just want to make sure you’re getting everything out of these sons of bitches before you eliminate them.”
    “We’re dealing with professionals here, so our usual means of information extraction aren’t always as successful. But rest assured, we will find out the truth out of those we’re still processing. That’s why you came to us. Here at McCrillis, client satisfaction is everything.”
    “Can the PR speech. Just find out if they really got rid of the girl or not.”
    “That is our top priority.” He paused. “We have yet to discuss what happens if we find out she’s still alive.”
    “What’s there to discuss? If she is, then I need your people to finish the goddamn job.”
    “It may take some time before we know the truth,” he said, salivating at how lucrative this job could turn out. “Months, maybe more.”
    “I don’t care how long