The woman barely spoke to any of them except for simple things or to give instructions.

But Eshe wasn’t worried.  She must be important to them. Otherwise, the woman wouldn’t have picked her.

In her seat, Dr. Abo was already scrolling through the information on the next group of children currently at their Rainbow school in Northern Tanzania.  Things had never been this hectic before, and it was introducing problems in an otherwise perfect routine which had been developed over dozens of years to identify and select the right children for their needs.

For Saad’s needs.

His health was now rapidly declining, causing everything to be accelerated.  Not just for Abo but for everyone, leaving her utterly exhausted.

Of course, he paid her extraordinarily well both for her service and her discretion.  For her ability to tune things out—whether jet engines or particular ethical dilemmas.

The money had done that for a long while, until Abo couldn’t help but start piecing things together.  The pictures.  The children.  The charities.  The schools.  And their unusual disciplinary practices.

Mido Saad was an extremely private person, keeping important details very close to the chest.  But over the years, through slight hints and innuendos, Abo had assembled enough information to become more than intrigued with the man.  With each shipment of children, she’d gleaned more and more—like dumping children off to the UNICEF camps after something detrimental had happened to them.  All of which she had been about to blow the whistle on.

Until she’d glimpsed something else.

Through helping him interpret the hundreds of hand-drawn pictures, Abo was slowly developing a sense of what Saad was doing—and more importantly, what he was truly after.

His clock was counting down ever faster with the cancer, leaving Saad not just eager but downright desperate.

Even as careful as the man had been and as paranoid, he still occasionally slipped up.  A word here and there that might seem irrelevant to the average person but not a psychiatrist, and certainly not one who’d spent over a decade helping him round up children no one would ever miss.  Perhaps harvest was a more appropriate term—all for a particular reason that only Saad knew.

He did not have much time now.  And she could now feel the desperation in his voice every time they spoke.  It was the kind of anxiety and despair a person felt when an impending crisis was visible on the horizon.

Whatever Saad was trying to accomplish, he was very close.  Or he believed he was.  He no longer focused on anything else.  Not on any of his businesses, several of which were still operational.  Not on any ventures of any kind.

Only this.

Relentlessly pushing Dr. Abo and dozens of others in Saad’s employ to deliver as many viable candidates as possible.