The Discarded (36 page)

“About right, I think.” He looked behind him to see what Orlando and Nate thought, but neither of them was there.

The last time he’d seen Orlando was when he’d passed her on the uphill slope. She’d waved him ahead, saying she’d be right behind him. He took four quick paces back down the trail, and she and Nate suddenly appeared around a bend. They were jogging at best, Orlando first, looking winded, with Nate right behind her.

He ran over to them. “What happened? Are you all right?” he asked, putting an arm around her waist and taking some of her weight.

She seemed glad for his help. “Not quite up to sprinting condition at the moment,” she said.

He hadn’t been thinking. He should have found her someplace safe to wait it out. He gave Nate a nod of thanks for hanging back with her and then guided them over to Desirae.

“We should fan out,” Desirae said. “She had to have been around here somewhere when she screamed.”

They didn’t find Tessa or Abraham, but Quinn did find the body of one of the men he and Nate had dealt with in Virginia. Two shots to the chest had done the job.

In a hushed voice, he called to the others.

“Jesus,” Desirae whispered, then quickly looked around. “Any signs someone else was hurt?”

“A definite struggle,” Quinn said. “But the only blood is here.”

“They must have kept going,” Orlando said.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Desirae said and took off back to the path.

“Slow down,” Quinn called to her. “We need to be smart. This guy might not have been alone.”

Desirae made no attempt to slow.

“Dammit,” Quinn said. “Nate?”

“On it,” Nate said and took off after her.

Quinn turned to Orlando. “Do you need more rest?”

“No, I’m okay,” she said. “Just go. You don’t have to babysit me.”

“Yeah, well, tough. You first.”

__________

G
LORIA HEARD NOISE
about two hundred yards up ahead. Running, more than one person, the sound fading fast.

“Double time,” she said. “King, you’re in front. Andres, you’re rear guard.”

__________

 “I
NEED A
second,” Abraham said as they neared a rock he could lean on. The fight had once more reminded him he wasn’t a young man anymore.

“You’re not having a heart attack, are you?” Tessa asked.

“No,” he said, trying to smile. “Just…need to catch my breath.”

“How old
are
you?”

“Old enough.” He huffed, rapidly at first, drawing in as much air as he could. When his breathing was closer to normal, he said, “All right. I’m ready.”

They moved farther into the valley, their pace about half as fast as it was before. As the path began to level off, Tessa whipped around and looked back beyond Abraham.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You didn’t hear that?” she asked, fear returning to her eyes. “Someone’s back there.”

He followed her gaze. While they were walking, he hadn’t been able to hear anything above the sound of his own labored breathing, but now he could pick it out—someone coming fast down the trail.

“Quick,” he said. “Into the brush.”

As he followed Tessa off the trail, his toe caught on a thick root. One second he was up, and the next he was sprawled on the jungle floor, his knee throbbing in pain and the gun he was carrying gone.

Tessa skidded to a stop a few feet in front of him and looked back.

“Run!” he said. “Go!”

From down the path he heard bushes part. He tried to see who was coming but there were too many bushes in his way. He twisted his head back to make sure Tessa was gone. But she was still there, aiming the gun he’d dropped toward the path.

“Whoa!” a male voice said. “Tessa, it’s okay. It’s Nate. I’m a friend, remember?”

“Terri, put it down.”

Tessa lowered the gun a few inches. “Mom?”

“Sweetie, put the gun down.”

Tessa let the gun drop to the ground and ran to her mother. As they threw their arms around each other, Nate knelt down next to Abraham.

“What happened?” he asked.

“When we heard you coming we tried to hide, but I tripped,” Abraham said. “Stupid.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Tweaked my knee, I think.”

“Roll on your back.”

Abraham did so, but not without pain. As Nate gently probed his knee, Quinn and Orlando showed up.

“What happened?” Orlando asked.

Nate repeated what Abraham had told him.

“Let’s see if you can walk,” Quinn said.

He and Nate helped Abraham to his feet. As Abraham applied pressure to his injured knee, a jolt of pain rushed up his leg. He staggered, wincing, and would have fallen if the other two hadn’t been holding on to him.

“I think that’s a no,” Nate said.

Abraham sighed. “Not my best day, I guess.”

“We’ve got to keep moving,” Quinn said. “Nate and I can help you.”

Abraham shook his head. “Path’s too narrow and I’d slow you down. You go. I’ll hide out here. You can come and get me later.”

Quinn looked at Orlando.

“Not a choice,” Abraham said. He used Nate to lower himself to the ground. “Get Tessa out of here. I’ll be fine.”

Orlando did not look happy, but she held out her pistol to him. “At least take this.”

“Don’t need it. Got my own,” he said, nodding back to the gun Tessa had dropped. “Now get the hell out of here.

He turned before anyone else could say anything and crawled toward the gun and the safety of the deeper jungle. It was a moment before he finally heard the others returning to the path.

They had barely reached it, though, when a female voice called out, “That’s far enough.”

__________

G
LORIA HEARD THEIR
voices a moment before she spotted Quinn and his people standing about a dozen feet off the path. She made a quick count. Four adults.

And one blessed child.

Could this really be it? Could she really be the one to close the books on the Rostov assignment? If so, she could write her own ticket at McCrillis from now on.

She clicked on her comm to get King’s attention. When he looked back, she pointed to a spot on the other side of the group.”

With a nod, he was off.

She activated her mic again and whispered, “Andres, need you up here with me.”

“On my way,” he replied.

She edged down the path as far as she could without exposing her presence, and watched as one of the women held out her gun. Why wasn’t clear. A moment or two later, the woman pulled it back and the group headed back toward the path.

“King?” she asked.

“I’m about fifty feet beyond them.”

“All right,” she said. “Here we go.” She cupped a hand over her mouth and yelled, “That’s far enough.”

The group immediately collapsed into a circle around the girl, their rifles up and ready. Gloria let off a well-aimed shot that cut through the jungle to their left.

“Guns down,” she yelled. When they didn’t comply, she keyed her mic. “King, warning shot.”

King sent his bullet sailing a few feet over their heads.

“Put your weapons down,” she said. “Or we won’t miss next time.”

 
__________

G
LORIA CLARK.

Quinn had recognized her voice immediately. And though he couldn’t
see her, the flash of her gun had given away her position.

“Anyone have the second shooter?” he asked, not moving his lips.

“My right, seventy-five feet ahead,” Nate said from the other side of the protective ring they’d formed around Tessa.

“Do we see any others?” Quinn asked.

“No movement here,” Orlando said.

“Same with me,” Desirae said.

The car Clark had driven up to the gate was a sedan and could hold up to five passengers. One man down thanks to Abraham, and the two shooters meant one or two more were still out there somewhere.

“Very well, then,” the woman said. “Mr. Quinn, we’ll start with you.”

The use of his name was clearly meant to show that by knowing who he was, Clark was in a superior position. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried that trick with him, and it was something he could use to his advantage.

“All right,” he said, sounding as if he were admitting defeat. “I’m putting it down, okay?”

As he dropped his rifle to the ground, he slipped his other hand behind his back, retrieved the pistol, and tucked it against his leg. Around him, he heard his friends drop their rifles, too.

“No need for anyone to get shot,” he said.

A tense few seconds passed before Clark said, “Send the girl down the path toward my voice.”

Quinn heard Tessa take in a jittery breath.

“She’s just a kid. A nobody,” Quinn said.

“You’re lying, Mr. Quinn. If I’m not mistaken, the girl is Tessa Kagawa. Or does she go by Rostov?”

“You’ve got the wrong girl,” Desirae said. “Her name’s Terri Drake.”

“Terri. Cute. Personally I would have tried a little harder to get something a little less Tessa-like. Now send her over, or we’ll kill you all
then
walk over there to get her ourselves.”

Quinn noticed a bush move in his peripheral vision, about twenty feet from Clark.

“Get ready,” he whispered. In a louder voice, he said, “Isn’t that your plan anyway?”

“Excuse me?” Clark replied.

“If this girl is who you think she is, you’ll have to kill all of us because we know too much.”

Another tremble of a branch, a few feet closer to the woman.

“The things I heard about you weren’t wrong after all. You
are
a smart man. Have it—”

“Now!” Quinn shouted.

 
__________

J
UST A LITTLE
closer
, Abraham thought.

He had crawled as quietly as he could toward the woman’s voice. Though at some level he knew his injured knee was hollering in pain, he felt nothing, his fear for Tessa’s life and his anger at all this
woman represented masking anything that would hinder his movements.

There. He could discern the outline of shoulders and head on the other side of the bushes in front of him, less than ten feet away. As he repositioned to bring his gun up, his arm bumped against a plant. He froze.

“…
are
a smart man. Have it—”

“Now!” Quinn yelled.

As if the cleaner were speaking to him, Abraham pushed to his feet and pulled his trigger.

He saw the woman’s shadow twist as she screamed in pain and fury. As he was about to pull his trigger again, he lost her for a moment in the vegetation.

Then, two bright flashes and the double
thup
of the woman’s gun betrayed her position. He fired two shots before finding himself on the ground again.

At first he thought he must have tripped as he fired, but that wouldn’t explain why he was suddenly cold and his shirt wet.

And then the barriers in his mind began to break, allowing the pain to rush in.

 
__________

Q
UINN RACED TOWARD
Clark, his gun whipping up in front of him. Behind him he could hear Desirae rolling into the brush with Tessa, while Nate and Orlando opened fire on the second shooter. As Quinn was about to pull his own trigger, Abraham rose out of the brush and fired almost point blank at the woman.

The woman yelled and returned fire.

Abraham’s body twisted from the impact, but he remained on his feet long enough to send off two shots before collapsing into the jungle. Quinn kept going, knowing he had to get to the woman before he could do anything for Abraham.

There was a dark splatter on the bushes in the area Clark had been, but the woman was gone. Quinn lowered to a crouch and eased forward, following a trail of wet spots on the ground. Twenty feet farther on, the path bent around a half buried boulder.

He heard her ragged breaths coming from the other side of the rock. He inched forward, his weapon at the ready, and found her sitting on the ground, her back against the rock. In her hand was her pistol, but she didn’t even try to lift it. As he drew closer, he saw why. One of Abraham’s shots had torn through her upper arm, and she was lucky to have held on to the gun at all. Her real problem, though, was the gut shot that had turned her shirt into a glistening mess.

She eyed Quinn. “You’re a real asshole…you know that? I was…”—she coughed—“just doing my job.”

He crouched in front of her and looked at her for a second before saying, “If your job is to kill a child, which one of us is really the asshole?”

“People like us…it’s not our…place to question an assignment.”

Quinn heard a noise, close, but he kept his gaze on the woman. “Who taught you that?”

She tried to scoff but ended up coughing again. “They’ll come for you….They won’t stop until…you
and
the…girl are dead.”

A shifting of dirt.

“Who? Your friends at McCrillis?” he asked.

“You…don’t have…a chance. They’re too…big.”

“I’ve dealt with bigger.”

Before she could reply, he twisted to the side and fired into the jungle.

A gurgle and a thud.

He relieved the woman of her gun, and then cautiously moved into the brush where the noise had come from. Parting a few branches with his leg, he found the man he’d shot lying on the ground. The bullet had caught him square in the throat, and while he still had a bit of life in his eyes, it was quickly draining away as blood pooled around his shoulders.

Quinn took the man’s weapon and returned to the woman. She was looking at him again, but whatever strength she’d had was gone. He knew it would be only minutes before she took her last breath.

He found Abraham on the ground, wincing in pain.

“Where were you hit?” he asked as he knelt down.

“Nowhere good, Johnny,” Abraham said.