Little Girl Gone - Brett Battles

He spotted Daeng standing next to an altar in the wide aisle. Nearby a smiling monk chatted away with an elderly Asian couple. Daeng had a Bluetooth receiver tucked in his ear, but didn’t appear to be talking to anyone at the moment, so Logan moved in next to him.

“Anything?” he whispered.

“The murderers from the secret police are here already. Six total. Two in white shirts and khaki pants off to my left. Three on the far side, one in a tropical shirt, one in a brown, and one in a blue. You passed the last guy when you walked in. Wearing a brown T-shirt. He was interested in you until you talked to your friends over there.”

“Anyone else?”

“No sign of Daw Myat, and no sign of Bell and Elyse. But if we’re going by the time Taw told us, we still have more than ten minutes.”

“Those stairs will take them that long, so they’ll take the tram for sure.”

Logan made a quick circuit of the stupa to get a look at the generals’ team. The common terms he would have used to describe them were focused and tough. He guessed it would have been a little too much to expect them to be disinterested and out of shape.

A group of monks in bright saffron robes entered through a back door, then walked over to one of the roof-covered shrines. As they passed Logan, he bowed like the other people around him were doing. Once the monks moved on, he worked his way back around to where he started.

That’s when Daeng caught his eye, then scratched his temple with two fingers—their sign that Elyse and her kidnappers were on their way up.

That left only Sein, but it made sense that she’d be last. Bell definitely wouldn’t want her to show up before he did. Too much of a chance the generals’ men would grab her and leave. That, no doubt, would negate the contract.

As expected, Bell and his team took the tram to the top. The second Logan saw Elyse he could tell she was still drugged. She was leaning heavily against Bell, her eyes barely open. He, in turn, had his arm around her, propping her up.

They were loosely surrounded by six of Bell’s men. Two were the men Logan had seen on the train, and one was the jerk who chased him and Angie on the L.A. freeways. But the guy who tried to kill Tooney wasn’t there, and there were at least three others missing.

Waiting at the bottom? Logan wondered. Or were they already up here and he hadn’t seen them?

He stepped over to Daeng and told him about the missing men. Daeng nodded, then quickly moved away to a less-crowded area, and touched the Bluetooth device in his ear.

Logan looked back at Bell and Elyse. They were walking toward the stupa with the man from Myanmar in the brown T-shirt following not far behind them.

Near Logan was a row of beautiful Buddha statues, each with a pot of sand in front for sticking incense sticks into. He kept his eyes focused on these as he worked his way from one to the other, trying to get as close as he could to Elyse without attracting attention.

Drawing nearer, he heard a heavily accented voice say, “Good afternoon, Mr. Andrews.”

“How are you, sir?” Bell’s voice, the same voice that had been giving orders back in the building outside of town.

“This is not what was agreed to.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be just a couple more minutes.”

“Then who is this?”

“No one important,” Bell said. “I have the signed contract. One copy I’m afraid.”

“There was supposed to be two.”

“And you will get the second. But you have a signed one. So that should be everything.”

“Except the payment.”

“Which will happen momentarily.”

Logan glanced over at Daeng, and gave him a single nod. It was time to make their move.

“You know what the problem is, it’s all so beautiful you begin taking it for granted, and start saying ‘just another Buddha statue.’” Saoirse had walked up beside him. She smiled. “Find your friend?”

“He’s on the other side,” Logan said quickly.

“Ah, good.”

He tried to listen to what was going on behind him, but Saoirse’s voice drowned it out.

“Me and the boys found a great pub down by the wall in town. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? The wall. The guidebook says it used to go all the way around the old part of the city. Anyway, thought maybe you and your friend might want to join us for a drink this evening. They’ve got some pool tables. Might get in a few games. What do you say?”

“Uh, maybe. Why not?”

He saw movement out the corner of his eye, and turned. Daeng was looking directly at him, waving an arm. Once he saw he had Logan’s attention, he held up one finger, then collapsed it into his fist so that none were showing.

Sein had arrived, and the clenched fist meant she was with Daeng’s people.

“The place is called The Hitch,” Saoirse said. “Near the east wall, on the old town side. Don’t know the name of the street, though.”

“It’s okay,” Logan said. “I’ll find it.” Having no choice, he looked over his shoulder at Bell.

The man was smiling and definitely looking confident. Logan locked eyes with Daeng, and gave him a second nod.

“It would be great if you can make it. I love Barry, and Brian’s a lot of fun, but we’ve been traveling together for about a month now, and sometimes it’s nice to talk—”

“I’m sorry. You’ll have to excuse me.”

He didn’t wait for a reply.

41

Logan tried to make it look like he was just another tourist taking in all the sights as he walked casually toward Elyse and Bell. But as he took another step, a hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder from behind.

“Hey. I think you need to apologize.”

It was Barry, and he didn’t look happy.

Why, Logan had no idea, but he didn’t have time to care. “Sure. Sorry.” He glanced back at Bell.

The guy was now holding a phone to his ear, but was leaning down and saying something to the secret policeman.

Barry suddenly moved in front of Logan. “Really? That’s pretty damn rude, don’t you think?”

Logan took a breath. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sorry, okay? I’ve gotta go.”

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to. It’s Saoirse.” Barry looked past Logan’s shoulder.

Logan followed his gaze, and could see Barry’s girlfriend standing pretty much where Logan had left her. He wasn’t sure if she was feeling hurt, or just embarrassed that her boyfriend was making a scene. But he couldn’t care. “I apologize,” he said to her. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just in a hurry.” He turned back around, but Barry was still standing there. “You need to get out of my way.”

He could see something was happening ahead. Bell, with Elyse still under his arm, and the Myanmar man next to him were heading toward the exit, Bell’s men loosely surrounding them.

As Logan started to weave around Barry, the Irishman reached out and grabbed Logan’s arm. “Who the hell do you think—”

Before he could finish Logan grabbed his arm, then swept his feet out from under him, and lowered the Irishman quickly to the ground. The anger that had been in Barry’s face disappeared. There was nothing but surprise in his eyes.

“I said I’m sorry,” Logan told him.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.”

When he looked back up, the others were more than halfway to the exit. They were going to get away if he didn’t move fast. He started dodging through the crowd, trying to convince himself he hadn’t missed his chance.

Then everything turned chaotic.

Monks started appearing through doorways, up through the main entrance, and seemingly even materializing out of the crowd.

This was Daeng’s doing, the extra help he had enlisted. Only the plan had been that the sudden influx of monks would confuse Bell, and create movement problems for his men, allowing Logan to grab Elyse.

But Logan was nowhere near Elyse. And while the tactic was definitely slowing the others’ escape, the flash mob created by the monks was also blocking Logan from getting closer to Tooney’s granddaughter.

He continued to push his way into the crowd, trying to squeeze through any seam that he could find.

“We have a problem.”

Logan looked over. Daeng had somehow caught up with him.

“Yeah. I noticed,” Logan said as he kept shoving his way forward.

“It’s the mother,” Daeng told him. “The monks tried to detain her, but she wouldn’t stay. Then some of your farang friends grabbed her as she was about to start up the stairs.”

Bell’s other men, Logan thought. The ones that were missing.

Daeng must have read Logan’s silence as displeasure, because he said, “The monks did all they could, but they weren’t going to hold her by force.”

“I know,” Logan told him. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay, but it wasn’t their fault, either. He should have given Daeng the signal as soon as Bell had stepped onto the temple grounds. They would have had Elyse by now, and they could have communicated that down to the monks who’d been with Sein. But he’d wanted to make sure he had accounted for everyone, and had gotten in as close as he could first.

Once more his delayed action had caused a mistake.

Get the girl. Carl’s voice whispered in his mind.

As they got closer to the exit, Logan could see that some of Bell’s men had been forced off to the side, and were being surrounded by monks. One of them stared at Logan across the crowd. It was the guy who had the beers on the train. Logan could see the light blub go on as he suddenly realized Logan must have something to do with all this.

The man shoved one of the monks out of his way. Only he didn’t get very far. Laying a violent hand on a monk was unheard of. Several Thais had seen the shove and were pulling the man back. More quickly joined in.

Logan craned his neck, looking ahead and hoping other monks had been able to corner Bell and Elyse, too, but no such luck. Bell was leading her and the Myanmar man down the short steps to the courtyard, with one of his men still with him.

“Excuse me!” Logan said loudly. “Excuse me!”

Daeng was shouting something in Thai next to him that he assumed was the equivalent.

It was working, at least a little. Some of the monks would look at them, then step out of the way once they saw Daeng. The biggest problem was the tourists. The sudden appearance of all the monks confused them, and they didn’t seem to know what to do, so they just stood in the way, taking pictures.

Finally, Logan and Daeng reached the exit steps. They raced down into the courtyard, not even worrying about grabbing their shoes.

“What about the generals’ men?” Logan asked. “One of them’s with Bell, but the others are going to get away.”

“No,” Daeng said. “They’ve been taken care of.”

“What do you mean?”

“The monks.”

“I thought you said they wouldn’t hold anyone by force.”

“I said they wouldn’t hold her by force. Elyse’s mother has done nothing wrong.”

Logan had a quick vision of the temple in Rangoon, and monks being beaten by the secret police. There would be no love lost here for those associated with that inhumane act.

They reached the top of the long, dragon-lined staircase. Logan took two seconds to pull off his socks so he wouldn’t slip, then kept moving. The others were about two-thirds of the way down, and he could see they’d taken a moment to put on their shoes. Bell’s man was carrying Elyse over his shoulder. It would have been nice if that had slowed him down, but he was moving as quickly as the others.

Daeng’s hand flew up, and he touched the Bluetooth receiver in his ear.

“They have Sein…in a van,” he said, his voice punctuated by the steps and the rhythm of his breath. “It’s waiting at the bottom.”

Bell was going to get away before they got there.

No! Logan thought. No! No! No!

He couldn’t fail again. He just couldn’t.

He increased his speed, knowing he might end up tumbling all the way down, but he didn’t care.

Not only was Elyse still in danger, her mother was in trouble, too. The only way to make this right was if he could get both women free.

When he jumped off the final step, he estimated that the others had about a thirty second lead. With Daeng not far behind him, he sprinted down the looping path through the vending area, and toward the street.

But as he took the final turn, he stumbled to a halt.

He was too late.

The same gray cargo van that had been parked by Bell’s building in the outskirts of the city was now pulling away from the curb.

“No!” he yelled.

He whipped his head around, looking up and down the road. There were several taxis parked off to the right, but a four-wheeled taxi wouldn’t do him any good. What he wanted was—

—a motorcycle.

It was parked at the side of the road. Its owner was sitting on the curb, eating. The guy wasn’t wearing one of the familiar orange vests, though, so it was a pretty good bet his ride wasn’t a motorcycle taxi.

Logan sprinted over to him. “Speak English?”

“Yeah,” the guy said. “I speak.”

“I need to use your bike.”

He laughed. “You kidding? No way.”

Logan pulled out a thousand baht note and held it out to him. “You can drive.” With his other hand he pointed at the rapidly receding gray cargo van. “They took my friend!”

The guy looked at the van, then back at Logan. “Serious?”

“Yes.”

As Logan got onto the back of his bike, Daeng ran up. “Let your friends at the bottom know we’re going to need them,” Logan said.

He nodded, then pulled out his phone.

“What’s you name?” Logan asked his new driver.

“Kai.”

“Okay, Kai. Let’s go!”

42

The road between Wat Doi Suthep and Chiang Mai followed the contours of the mountain down to the plateau where the city lay. The hillside was covered with tropical vegetation. With the exception of where there was a roadside business or home, the plants and trees came right up to the edge of the road, sometimes even creating a partial canopy over the top.

It would have been beautiful if Logan had had time to pay attention, but his focus was on spotting the van that was somewhere ahead of them, not on the local flora. He kept his eyes glued over Kai’s shoulder at the asphalt ahead. If this had been a straight road through a flat countryside he would have seen them right away. But the curves severely shortened his visual range.

Finally, after another sharp turn to the left, he saw the van, then pointed at it.

Kai said something.

“What?” Logan asked, unable to understand.

“What you want do?” Kai yelled.

“Go around him,” Logan said. “And keep going fast all the way to the bottom.”

“Why bottom?”