Little Girl Gone (A Logan Harper Thriller)

by Brett Battles

  Before Harp could open his mouth, Logan said, “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I do know that Toony’s making a huge mistake. For God’s sake, his granddaughter is missing! If it was your grandchild, you’d do anything you could to find her.” He paused. “We both know how I feel about the FBI, but Tooney needs to call them now. You need to convince him of that.”

  His dad looked resigned as he shook his head. “He’ll never call them.”

  “Then you need to do it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I…I promised him.”

  “So the hell what? This is a girl’s life we’re talking about.” Logan leaned back. “Dammit, I’ll call them myself, then.”

  “You can’t, either.”

  “Sure I can.”

  “No. I also promised him you wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t care. I didn’t promise.” Logan pushed up from his chair.

  “Logan, sit back down.”

  Logan looked at his father, but remained standing.

  Harp sighed. “If the people who have her get even a hint that the FBI, or the police, or any other organization for that matter is looking for them, they will kill her for sure.”

  “Do you know what’s going on, Dad? Did he tell you?”

  “Most of it.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “It’s not my place.”

  “Then I have no choice.”

  Logan pulled out his phone, and punched in the number for information. Once the connection was made, he hit the speaker button so his father could hear how serious he was. The first automated prompt asked him for the city. “Los Angeles.” Then the name. “Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  Harp pleaded with his eyes for his son to hang up.

  The voice gave Logan the number, then asked if he’d like to be connected. “Yes.”

  Before the phone had even began to ring, his dad said, “Logan, please.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  It took two rings before his father finally nodded.

  “Federal Bureau of Investigation. How may I—”

  “I’m sorry,” Logan said, cutting off the voice that answered. “Wrong number.”

  He sat back down, and set the phone on the table, making sure his dad knew how easy it would be for him to pick it up and call again.

  “Give me three minutes,” Harp said, then stood up. “I need to talk to Tooney. He really should be the one to tell you.”

  “Dad…”

  His father held up his hands to stop Logan from saying anything more. “If he doesn’t, I will. Okay?”

  Logan hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

  It took him five minutes, not three. When he returned, the whole group was with him, each carrying a cup of coffee, Jerry with an additional bowl of fries in his other hand.

  Harp and Tooney were the only ones who came over to Logan’s table. Barney and Jerry grabbed a table at the other side of the patio, while the marines all remained standing, covering the edge along the street.

  Logan’s dad had brought out two cups of coffee. He set one in front of Logan, then sat in the same chair he’d been in before. Reluctantly, Tooney took the chair next to him.

  Instead of waiting, Logan decided to start. “I know this is difficult, but unless you convince me otherwise, I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I hope you understand.”

  Tooney gave him a humorless smile. “Of course, I understand. But, please, can’t you just trust me?”

  “It’s not a matter of trust. I believe you think you’re doing the right thing, but when it’s someone close to you who’s in danger, people often don’t think straight. If your granddaughter’s in trouble, we need to get help.”

  “If we do that, she is as good as dead.”

  “Yeah. Dad said the same thing, but you can’t know that for sure.”

  Tooney’s shoulders moved up and down as he took in a deep breath. “I can.”

  “How?”

  Tooney gave Logan’s dad a pained look as if he were hoping there was some way he could be spared from having to say anything more.

  “Tell him,” Harp said. “That can’t hurt her.”

  Tooney carefully touched his hand to his bruised face. “But what if even after I do he does call the police?”

  “He won’t. I promise.”

  “But what if he does?”

  Harp looked at his son. “Then he’s not the man I thought he was.”

  Logan let that one pass. He knew his dad was trying to guilt him into cooperating, but there was potential guilt on the other side, too, the guilt of inaction if it turned out a phone call could have saved the girl.

  Tooney didn’t move for several seconds. Finally, he lifted his head, and looked Logan in the eye. “I was one of the lucky ones.”

  14

  “You know that I am from Burma, yes?” Tooney said.

  Logan nodded.

  Tooney’s gaze grew distant, lost in a memory. Finally, he looked back at Logan. “When I escaped, I was able to bring most of my family with me. Many were not so blessed. My younger sister, my brother, my wife, my two daughters, we were all together. The only ones who could not come were my father and my older sister. He too old to travel, so she stay to take care of him.” He paused again, but only briefly. “It was not easy to leave without them, but we had no choice. My wife had been…vocal in her concerns about the government. One day we were warned by a friend that soldiers would be coming for us that night, so we knew it was time to go.” He shook his head. “Thirty minutes after they tell us this, we gone. The only things we bring were clothes and food. Everything else we leave behind. All memories of our life.

  “Friends hid us in cars and drove us into the jungle in the hills to the east. From there we walk for five days, hiding when we hear patrols, until we cross into Thailand. This was 1984. Already there were refugee camps along the border with thousands of other Burmese. We were just six more.

  “Then, for a second time, we were lucky. We stayed in camp for only one year. A church in San Luis Obispo sponsored our whole family. That’s how we got out of Thailand. That’s how we come to California.”

  He took another pause. This was a lot more about Tooney than Logan had ever been aware of, but by the knowing nods from his father, the story wasn’t new to him.

  “My oldest daughter, Sein, did you know her? She several years older than you, but we not move to Cambria from San Luis Obispo until after she graduate high school, so maybe not.”

  Logan shrugged. “I saw her around a few times. But I don’t think I ever spoke to her. I knew Anka a little, though. She was two years behind me, I think.”

  Tooney gave him a half-smile. “Anka, my American child. She born in Burma but it like she never lived there. She teach high school English now, and she married to white boy like you. He’s a good man, though.”

  “As opposed to me?”

  Tooney shook his head. “You not bad. But you lonely man. You need someone to warm your heart.”

  Logan let the instant psychology session, as unexpectedly accurate as it was, pass without comment.

  “Sein, she meet Burmese boy at camp in Thailand,” Tooney went on. “His name Khin. She tell me all the time she love him. Khin’s family sponsored, too, but by group in North Carolina. So he far away. Did not stop them, though. As soon as he out of high school, he come to California for her, and marry her. He good man, too. Very much love her. They have first baby 1988. My first granddaughter, Yon. Then one more in 1991, Elyse.” He drifted again. “My wife never see Elyse.”

  “She was born after your wife died?” Logan asked. He only had vague memories of Tooney’s wife. As far as he could recall, he never saw her after his first or second year in high school. He’d heard later that she’d passed away, but he didn’t know the family very well at the time so the details didn’t stick with him.

  “No,” Tooney said, an undercurrent of anger in his v
oice. “Thiri, my wife, she died in 1994. In Burma.”

  “Burma? But I thought you said she came here with you.”

  “She did,” he said. “Do you know Burma history?”

  “A bit.”

  “Aung San Suu Kyi?”

  Logan nodded. She was the daughter of Aung San, the popular Burmese general who was assassinated when she was still a young child. Later she became a symbol of freedom in a country that had come to be run by a ruthless military dictatorship.

  “In 1988 Aung San Suu Kyi return to Burma, and help start NLD, National League for Democracy. Thiri believe Daw Suu Kyi would save our country from the evil that was running it. She want to sneak back into Burma to help. ‘For us,’ she told me. ‘For our families. Burma will always be our home.’ We fight so much about this, but I knew I could not stop her. In ’89, Daw Suu Kyi was put under house arrest. But Thiri still free, and help spread the word about the NLD, and Daw Suu Kyi’s beliefs in a Burma without fear. In 1990, there was a nationwide election, and NLD won by large amount. It should have been moment of my country’s freedom. But it was not. The generals void the election and send out troops . Thiri know she could no longer stay, so headed for the Thai border, same trip we had make together six years before. Only she not reach it this time. She caught and taken to prison. After her arrest, I never talk to her again.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Logan said, knowing the words were inadequate. He had no idea that the man who poured his coffee every morning had lived such a tragic life.

  “After the election and the crackdown, we not know if Thiri alive or not. She send message to me that she was leaving the country. But that was it. Months went by without a word. She just disappeared. Then my sister in Burma found out Thiri arrested.”

  Tears glistened in Tooney’s eyes as he fell silent for a moment. “It was very hard on our daughters. They handled it very different. Anka was still in high school. She focused on her studies, and began working hard to lose the little bit of accent she still had. She wanted nothing to do with the country that would imprison her mother.

  “Sein went the other way, and follow her mother’s example. She became more involved in the democracy movement. Doing what she could from over here, taking over where my wife left off. When we learned Thiri had died, Sein got even more involved, speaking out, organizing, doing whatever she could. Now she is a powerful voice outside of Burma, calling for removal of the generals who rule over our people. She travels around the world, talks to groups wherever she can.” He took a deep breath. “Thiri would be very proud of her.”

  “I’m sure you’re proud of her, too,” Logan said.

  “I am.” There was a wistfulness in his voice, a sadness that confused Logan. When Tooney saw the look on his face, he said. “Sein blame me. Not much for her mother’s death, but for not going back to Burma with my wife and helping the movement. Maybe if I went, maybe Thiri would still be alive. But Anka was in school. I had to stay. Thiri made me promise to watch over the girls.” A tear finally rolled down his cheek. “Sein and I not talk much anymore.”

  Tragedy on top of tragedy. Logan gave him a moment, then said, “I’m still not clear what all this has to do with Elyse’s disappearance.”

  Tooney looked at him. “The man yesterday morning, he told me Elyse taken to shut up her mother. If Sein cooperates, they will let Elyse go. There is a human rights conference in London in two weeks. Sein is supposed to give important speech there. They don’t want this to happen.”

  “But who are they?”

  “The Burmese false government, of course. The generals of Myanmar, as they have decide to call our country.”

  “Wait. You think the Myanmar government is behind your granddaughter’s kidnapping?”

  The look on Tooney’s face said it should be obvious. “Who else? They are crazy. They are not like other countries. Believe me, I know.”

  Logan let this sink in for a second, but found it hard to believe a foreign government was kidnapping people in the U.S. “The man who attacked you wasn’t Burmese. He was Caucasian.”

  Harp scoffed. “Probably just hired for the job.”

  “I don’t know. It sounds too—”

  “Crazy?” Tooney asked.

  “But why kill you?”

  “Elyse is the important one. Not me. Maybe I was just in the way.”

  Logan hesitated. “What about the rest of your family? Have any of them been attacked, too?”

  “They can’t get to Sein. She is in Europe with Khin and oldest daughter, Yon. The foundation that she work for give her with excellent security. Besides, Burma would want to quietly shut her up, not kill her. Her death would be international news and focus more attention on the country, not less.”

  “Have you called her and told her about Elyse?”

  “I wanted to know for sure he was not lying to me first. That’s what I’ve been telling myself, anyway. But the truth is that I know Sein won’t answer even if I do call.”

  “You’re going to have to try and get a hold of her somehow.”

  He looked ashamed. “I know.”

  Logan paused for a second. “If Sein’s death would focus more attention on Burma, wouldn’t killing her daughter do the same thing?”

  Tooney shook his head. “Elyse is not high profile like Sein. Her death could be made to look like anything. An accident, suicide, whatever they want. Besides, Sein would never let it come to that. They know this. Our children are always our weaknesses. She will do what they want so Elyse will live.”

  “And if we call the police?”

  “They will kill her now. Make her disappear so they can claim zero responsibility and avoid creating international incident. No one will ever know what happened. It is the only thing they can do.”

  “What about your other daughter?” I asked.

  “Anka’s married to an American. She has an American last name. That’s her protection. They would not want the kind of trouble they think might happen by hurting her.”

  “Elyse is an American, too. Hurting her is going to cause just as many problems.”

  “They won’t see it that way. To them, she is one hundred percent Burmese, like her mother, and her grandmother.”

  Logan leaned back. “There’s no guarantee they won’t kill Elyse anyway.”

  Tooney paused, then locked eyes with him. “One way is for sure, the other is…unknown.”

  15

  Logan didn’t call the FBI.

  He didn’t promise Tooney he wouldn’t, but he did say he would think about it and let him know what he was going to do. But he knew even then that he wouldn’t make that call.

  He wasn’t ready to buy the whole story yet. The idea of Burma—or Myanmar, as the leaders there preferred—reaching its hand all the way into the United States to pluck a twenty year-old college student off the street just didn’t sound right. Unless things had changed since he last checked, Burma had showed little interest in the world outside its borders. Would they even have the resources to pull something like this off? He had his doubts. But they weren’t strong enough for him to test the theory by calling the FBI.

  Which meant he needed to find out what was really going on.

  While Logan spent his morning at the police station, his dad and the others had unexpectedly done a little work for him and found the address of Elyse’s friend Lara Mendonca. They hadn’t, however, been able to further identify her other friend, Anthony.

  Lara lived just south of LAX in an area called El Segundo. Her apartment was on the third floor in a generic box of a building, a block off of Imperial Highway.

  Logan knocked, half expecting no one to answer. It was afternoon, and though Lara would be on spring break, he thought even if she were still in town there was a good chance she was out and about.

  The door opened, and a woman about Elyse’s age and wearing a Starbuck’s Coffee uniform looked out. “Yes?”

  “Lara Mendonca?”

  “Yeah. Who are you?”
/>
  Logan tried not to let his sense of relief show as he said, “Logan Harper. You’re a friend of Elyse Myat’s, right?”

  She looked at him, warily. “Yeah.”

  “I’m a friend of her grandfather. Tooney.”

  She continued to stare. “So?”

  “Can I ask you a few questions?”

  “It’s almost time for me to go to work. What kind of questions?”

  “Well, Tooney’s concerned about her. She was supposed to visit him yesterday, but she didn’t show up. And now we can’t find her anywhere.”

  The suspicion on her face immediately turned into concern. “Are you serious?”

  Logan nodded. “When was the last time you talked to her?”

  She looked away in thought. “The night before last. Yesterday she was supposed to go up to…” She looked at Logan again, testing him.

  “Cambria,” he said. “To visit her grandfather.”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t make it.”

  “Oh, God. Did you check the hospitals? Maybe she was in an accident.”

  “We checked. No accident,” he said. “Could I come in for a minute? Might be easier than talking out here.”

  She hesitated only a second, then nodded, and moved to the side so he could enter.

  Unlike Ryan’s apartment, Lara’s place was furnished in a much more finished, post-college style—real paintings on the walls, furniture that didn’t look twenty years old, and no smell of stale pizza.

  As soon as they were seated in the living room, he asked, “What was her mood like when you last talked?”

  “Mood? Uh, fine, I think,” she said. “She was looking forward to getting out of town.”

  “Any clue that she might have been thinking about going some place else?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “Any problems with her boyfriend?”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Aaron Hughes.”

  She snorted a laugh. “Aaron’s not her boyfriend. Who told you that?”

  “Angie.”

  Her laugh this time was even louder than the first. “I don’t think Elyse would ever talk to Angie about her love life. She and Aaron went out once, I think, but that was it. She thinks he’s kind of odd, and not in a good, Jesse Eisenberg kind of way. Elyse does sometimes spend the night here. Maybe that’s what Angie was thinking.”