Little Girl Gone - Brett Battles

When the train stopped at a station, he always made sure he was at least two cars deep in second class, so that when he stepped onto the platform—not much more than concrete slabs in front of most of the station buildings—he would be less noticeable if the others stepped out, too.

When midnight came, he switched with Daeng, and tried to get a little sleep.

It only felt like seconds, though, before Daeng was shaking his shoulder, and they switched places again.

At the sink, Logan splashed water on his face, then started his walk.

The Irish backpackers had apparently decided enough was enough, because the curtain was pulled over the berth they’d been sitting in, and the area was quiet. Logan half wondered if they’d knocked out on their own, or if it had been “suggested” by some of their neighbors that they might want to curtail the conversation, and get some shut eye.

Whatever the case, he was left alone.

He decided to use the time thinking over everything again, retracing his steps, rerunning conversations, and trying to make sure he hadn’t missed something that might be important.

As he was remembering Elyse’s apartment, he started thinking about the paintings on her wall, the same girl in each image always on the edge of the action. In some, she seemed to just be watching, while in others it was like she wanted to join in but was waiting. Then there was the winged girl in the tree, alone but smiling like she had a secret. Even so, there was an innocence about her, a life on the verge of being lived.

It was only natural that he then starting thinking about Carl and Afghanistan and the day everything changed.

The heat of summer hadn’t taken hold of Afghanistan yet. Which was fine by Logan. Unlike Carl, he wasn’t a fan of the heat. They’d flown over to meet with a group of their men who’d been sent in to serve at a checkpoint just outside of Kabul.

Easy stuff, really. They just had to run a few assessments, and make sure the men were up to speed on everything required of them.

It had been going well. Very well, in fact. The guys were in good spirits, and their physical condition exceeded expectations. Unless something unexpected happened, Logan and Carl would be home by the weekend.

Ironically, both things came true.

It was Carl’s idea, but it could have just as easily been Logan’s.

For the first time in years, Carl had a serious girlfriend. Her name was Brenda, and they’d been going out for nearly four months. Every time he and Logan traveled somewhere he made sure to pick her up something interesting.

On this trip he’d heard from some security guys who’d been in the country for a while about some tablecloths that were supposed to be big hits with the wives back home.

Tablecloths, of all things. Logan still couldn’t believe that.

That day they finished early, freeing up most of their afternoon. So Carl had talked their Afghani guide into taking them and a few other Forbus guys to the shop where these cloths were sold.

Technically, they weren’t really supposed to be in that part of town. But they were there, and, because they never went anywhere in country without their weapons, they were armed, too.

Logan could have stopped the trip from happening. He even suggested to Carl that maybe they should wait until they could get an official escort.

“Relax,” Carl had said. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’ll buy one for Trish, too. She’ll love it.”

Logan knew even then he should have stood his ground and insisted, but Carl had been acting kind of distracted for the previous couple of weeks, and it was nice to see him excited about something again. So Logan simply said, “Okay,” making everything that happened afterward his fault, at least from his point of view.

The ambush caught them two streets away from the store. The gunfire seemed to come out of nowhere. One second they were driving, and the next their guide was dead, and their vehicle had crashed into a wall.

Then there was the little girl in the street.

Logan found out later she was only four. Where she had come from, he never knew. But suddenly she was there, running in the wrong direction, toward the flying bullets. Most of the guys had gotten out of the other side of the vehicle and were returning fire. That meant Logan and Carl were the only ones who saw her.

Carl reacted first, but only because he spotted her first. Logan was running right behind him.

They were halfway to the girl, when the bullet caught Carl in the chest, spinning him to the ground. The shooter was on the roof of a building across the street. Logan immediately brought up his gun and got off two quick shots before the guy could train his rifle on him. The gunman staggered toward the edge of the roof, then fell into street, dead.

“You’re going to be okay,” Logan said, as he grabbed Carl’s shoulders, and pulled him out of the line of fire.

As soon as Logan was kneeling beside him, Carl whispered. “The girl. Where’s the girl?”

Logan looked around. He spotted her walking along the tan wall, tears streaming down her face, but still moving toward the firefight.

He looked at his brother-in-law. Carl was bleeding badly. If he was going to live, Logan needed to stay with him and do what he could.

Carl must have seen the agony in Logan’s eyes. “Get the girl,” he whispered.

But Logan hesitated, not ready to desert his best friend.

Carl coughed, then said a little louder, “Get the girl.”

 He was right, of course. Logan stood up. “I’ll…I’ll be right back.”

He raced down the road to the wall, expecting a bullet to pierce his skin at every step. As he neared her, she saw him, then started to run away, moving into the street.

“No!” he yelled.

He sprinted after her, and scooped her up.

Chaos surrounded them as he ran with her in his arms back toward Carl and the safety at the end of the road.

He had no idea when it happened. In the over two years since, he’d gone over it in his mind, step-by-step, but he still couldn’t figure it out. The only things he knew for sure were that when he picked her up, everything had been okay, but when he reached the end of the street, a bullet had already cut its path through her abdomen.

Three Afghani women came running out of one of the homes, screaming at him and crying. They took the girl from him, leaving behind only the blood that covered Logan’s hand and clothes. He had no idea how long he stared after them before he remembered Carl.

 “Did you get her?” Carl said, his voice barely audible.

Logan wiped the blood off his hand, then took Carl’s and held it tight. “Yes. I got her.”

Carl smiled, “Good,” then a moment later, the last of his life slipped away.

When they got back to the base, Logan learned that the girl died on the way to the hospital.

If he hadn’t stopped to help Carl and kept running, he was sure the girl would still be alive. If he had left the first time Carl had told him to get her, he was also sure she’d still be alive. And if he had just stayed with Carl, and done what he could, it was very possible his brother-in-law would still be alive.

But instead, they were both dead, killed by just a few seconds of inaction. His inaction.

It was news for weeks. SECURITY FIRM DEBACLE IN KABUL: 5 CIVILIANS DEAD and OFF DUTY RENT-A-SOLDIERS KILL INNOCENT BYSTANDERS. Those were just two of the headlines, many were even worse.

Trish didn’t wait for weeks, though. Two days after he’d returned with Carl’s body, when he admitted to his own perceived guilt in his best friend’s death, she walked out. “I can’t look at you any more,” she had said. “You even admit you might have been able to save him, but you didn’t. Every time I see you, I see him. I see his dead face. You took him from me. You took my brother.”

Faced with a PR disaster, Forbus went hunting for a scapegoat. Logan was the obvious choice. They made it sound like it was his idea to go on this trip. They made it sound like Carl was the one who protested. To sweeten the pot, they even floated the rumor that Logan was responsible for some abnormalities in the books. Jon Jordan himself gave him the choice: leave on his own or be publically dragged through the courts.

Logan didn’t put up a fight. He didn’t correct any of the misperceptions.

He just left.

33

At around 2:30 a.m., the train began to slow as it approached the next station. Logan was on the first class side of the dining car, so he hustled to the back of the train, and waited by one of the doors until they pulled to a complete stop.

As before, he stepped down onto the concrete pad. This time he did a few stretching exercises to get his blood flowing. Even then, his mind was still a little foggy, so he almost didn’t realized that someone had stepped off the same first class car where the others’ cabin was.

The lights on the platform left something to be desired, but the passenger did him the favor of moving down the train into the halo cast by a lamp on the outside of the station.

It was Aaron.

Logan’s first thought was that the others were getting ready to leave.

He moved back to the door, ready to jump on and grab Daeng. But none of Aaron’s companions appeared.

“Okay, so what are you doing up?” Logan said under his breath.

Aaron pulled something out of his pocket and raised it to his ear. A phone, Logan realized. Unfortunately, he was too far away for to hear what Aaron was staying, so he pulled himself back onto the train, then rapidly made his way to the smokers’ area passageway just beyond the dining car. There he leaned up to the open window and listened.

There was nothing at first, not even footsteps. For a second, he thought that maybe Aaron had already finished and gone back inside. Then Logan heard a foot kick at the concrete almost directly below him. Involuntarily, he pulled back a few inches.

“Yeah, yeah…okay,” Aaron said. “No problems at all…yeah, I’m sure…okay, okay…we’ll see you in a few hours, then.”

Logan heard the muffled tone of the call being disconnected. There was some movement, then a scratching sound followed by the intake of a breath. A second later, he caught the whiff of cigarette smoke.

Aaron took a few steps, then stopped. Logan could hear him blow out a stream of smoke. Suddenly, he was enveloped in its cloud, and had to choke off a cough.

“Who’s up there?” Aaron asked, surprised.

Dammit.

Logan ducked into the dining car, intending to rush back to his bed, and get behind his privacy curtain in case Aaron came looking for him. But he only made it halfway across the empty dining car, before the train started rolling again. He tottered to his right, and grabbed the nearest table to keep from falling down, then started on his way again. He was just moving around the snack counter into the narrow passageway, when he heard the door behind him open.

“Hey, you!” Aaron yelled.

There was no way he would get into his berth now. That left him two choices: keep going until he reached the end of the train, or stay in the dining car where there was no one but the two of them. Either way he sensed was a confrontation in his future. And while he liked his odds no matter where it happened, it would be best, he thought, if they weren’t surrounded by sleeping passengers.

Having walked the train a dozen times already, he knew there was a little nook at the backside of the kitchen near the exit to the next car.

He raced down the passageway, took the sharp left that marked the end of the kitchen, then tucked himself into the nook.

Five seconds later, Aaron blew passed him, then stopped at the car door without opening it. It was easy to imagine what was going through his head. I didn’t hear it open.

That’s right, Logan thought. You didn’t.

Aaron’s youth was his downfall. Once he realized he’d been tricked, he whipped around so he could figure out where Logan had hid. What he didn’t expect was that Logan had silently slipped out of the nook, and was standing two feet behind him.

“What the hell?” Aaron shouted, jerking back.

“Aaron Hughes?” Logan asked.

Aaron’s eyes widened, confirming what Logan had already assumed.

“Hello, Aaron,” Logan said. “Nice to finally meet you. I’m Logan Harper.”

 Aaron stared at him confused. “Harper? Harper. You’re…you’re that guy.” Though he had never seen Logan before, he’d obviously heard his name from Ryan or Angie back in Los Angeles.

“I’m that guy,” Logan confirmed, then hit him in the jaw.

Aaron stumbled backwards into the wall, and fell to one knee. He wasn’t out, but he was definitely shaken up.

Logan grabbed his arm and pulled him back to his feet.

Aaron took a swing, but Logan easily moved out of the way, and grabbed Aaron’s wrist, using its momentum to guide the kid’s fist into the wall. There was a satisfying crunch.

Aaron yelped out in pain, then tried to swing at Logan with his other hand. Logan decided it was time to do him a favor. He twisted Aaron around, then put his arm around the kid’s throat and cut off his air just long enough for Aaron to slip into unconsciousness.

It really wasn’t a fair fight from the beginning. Logan had had years of military training and experience, plus the element of surprise. Aaron had maybe a year or two as a cocky bastard in high school, and little else.

It was Aaron’s own fault it had even happened, though. Logan hadn’t wanted to fight him in the first place. Aaron didn’t have to chase him after he’d heard Logan cough. He could have let it go, and assumed Logan was just someone out getting a little fresh air in the middle of the night. It would have sure made a hell of a lot more sense from his point of view than finding the guy who’d been snooping around looking for Elyse back in L.A.

Logan dragged him down the passageway, and laid him on the floor behind the snack counter. It was only a temporary solution, but it was out of sight in case anyone else came by on a late night stroll.

He then went and woke Daeng.

 “My turn already?” Daeng said as he opened his eyes.

“I need your help.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Now would be good.”

Logan led him back to Aaron. The kid was still lying on the floor, not having moved an inch.

“Is he dead?”

“No.”

Daeng glanced at Logan. “This isn’t exactly keeping a low profile.”

“I thought we could use this to our advantage.”

 “This should be interesting.”

“The train’s got to stop again in the next hour or so, right?” Logan said. “I was thinking that might be a good time for Aaron to get off, and forget to get back on. Do you know anyone in this part of the country?”

“I know people in all parts of the country.”

Logan had hoped as much. “Someone who could meet us in the middle of the night, and take possession of our friend here?”

Daeng looked at Aaron for a moment. “That could be arranged.”