Little Girl Gone (A Logan Harper Thriller)

by Brett Battles

  They were headed straight for the barge now, with the other boat a lot closer to them than Logan would have liked.

  “Can’t you go any faster?”

  By the look Daeng gave him, Logan was pretty sure they were going as fast as they could.

  A searchlight on the tugboat flicked on, illuminating the water in front of them. Daeng whipped the boat to the left, running along side the barge, and staying out of reach of the spot. But Ryan’s boat turned a few seconds too late, and the light caught them. Several people yelled across the water, and a horn on the tug blasted twice, but within seconds the other longboat was back in the dark, too.

  As they raced past the first barge, Logan could now see that it wasn’t a convoy of two but of three, each looking like a large football field on a raised, black pedestal, gliding through the water. Just before they reached the halfway point of the second one, Daeng shouted, “Hang on. I’m going to try something.”

  Logan was already hanging on, so he tighten his grip and hoped whatever Daeng was going to do would work.

  Less than five seconds later, Daeng cut the engine way back, and swung the boat around so that it looked like they were going to ram right into the side of the barge. But suddenly the bulky vessel in front of them was replaced by the gap between it and the third barge. Daeng gunned the engine, shooting them through the quickly closing space and onto the other side.

  Logan looked back. The other boat hadn’t been able to turn in time. They were going to have to go all the way around the third barge.

  Daeng turned their boat so that they were traveling in the same direction as the barges, only faster. On their right, the gap they’d shot through was coming up again. Logan nearly lost his balance as Daeng whipped them back through to the other side.

  “A little warning would have been nice!” he shouted.

  “Sorry!” Daeng replied.

  As they emerged, they could see the tail end of Ryan’s boat disappearing around the back of the third barge. Daeng turned them south, then matched their speed to the convoy.

  For several minutes, they continued on in this way, their presence masked by the massive barge at their side. Logan constantly scanned in both directions, ready to shout out if the other boat reappeared. Finally, Daeng lifted the propeller out of the water, and they slowed until they were simply moving with the current.

  Beside them, the dark hulks moved by, until the third barge passed and they were alone in the river again. Daeng dipped the propeller back in the water, and aimed them across the wake toward the other side. Then, just as they were clearing the first of the swells, the sound of another engine cut through the night.

  Ryan’s boat.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Logan yelled.

  Apparently, Ryan and his pilot had been doing the same thing Logan and Daeng had, only on the other side of the barge. Now they were headed straight at them.

  The pilot of the other boat yelled across the short distance between them.

  “He wants us to stop,” Daeng said.

  “Don’t!”

  Daeng kept them moving forward as fast as possible, the front of the boat flying out of the water, then bouncing hard against the river with each swell.

  As the other pilot was yelling at them again, Logan saw something directly in front of their boat. “Watch out!”

  But his warning came too late. By the time Daeng started to turn, they had already traveled into one of the floating islands of vegetation. Logan heard the propeller chew on some of the vines, then catch and stop cold, killing the engine at once.

  The other boat slowed as it approached, then stopped beside them, just outside the vine trap. Logan kept his back to them, hoping they could somehow get out of this without Ryan getting a look at him. Because if that happened, and Ryan reported back that Logan was here, the people who had Elyse might decide it was time to cut their losses and make her disappear forever.

  “You speak English?” Ryan asked.

  “Little,” Daeng said, falling easily into a Thai accent.

  “What about your friend there?”

  “No speak.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Looking for? Mai khao jai. Don’t understand.”

  There was a pause, then Ryan asked, “What were you doing?”

  “Doing? Fishing. On boat.”

  “I don’t see any fishing equipment.”

  “Fall out when you chase us.”

  “Right. Sure. What were you doing?”

  “I tell you already,” Daeng said.

  “You there in the middle. What were you doing out here?”

  Logan didn’t move.

  “Hey, I bet you do speak English. Tell me what you were doing? You were looking for something, weren’t you? I could tell.”

  Logan continued to act like he couldn’t hear him.

  “Move us in closer,” Ryan said to his pilot.

  The motor on the other boat throttled up for a moment. A few seconds later, there was a bump, and the boat Logan was in rocked back and forth.

  “Why were you out here?” Ryan said, his voice only a few feet away. “Hey. I’m talking to you. Turn around.”

  Logan continued to stare out at the water.

  “Tell him to turn around,” Ryan said.

  The pilot spoke in Thai, relaying the command to Logan.

  Slowly, Logan rose, his back still to Ryan.

  “Turn around,” Ryan commanded.

  When he didn’t move right away, Ryan grabbed Logan’s shoulder, then pulled at him. Logan resisted for a moment, then finally turned.

  A second passed before recognition flashed across Ryan’s eyes. “What the hell? You?”

  “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do anything stupid again,” Logan said, then slugged him in the gut.

  He’d hoped the blow would send Ryan over the side of his boat, but Ryan caught himself, then swung his gun around, its barrel making a quick arc that would end with its muzzle pointed at Logan’s chest. Before that could happen, though, Logan leaped at him.

  There was no way for Ryan to stop their combined momentum this time. He went into the river, and Logan went with him.

  They plunged several feet beneath the dark, muddy surface, their arms intertwined. Logan tried to push Ryan away, but Ryan fought back, using his gun as a club. He landed one blow, but on his second try it slipped from his hand, and fell toward the riverbed.

  His lungs screaming for air, Logan pushed away from Ryan, then broke the surface, gasping. A second later, Ryan came up, too.

  He took a few rapid breaths, then said, “How the hell did you find us?”

  “Where’s Elyse, Ryan?” Logan asked.

  “Nowhere you’ll find her.”

  “Where is she?”

  Ryan started to laugh, but it quickly died in his throat as Logan began swimming toward him. He immediately started moving away, but he was a mediocre swimmer at best, and no match for Logan. He seemed to sense this, because just before Logan got to him, he stopped.

  Pulling up just short of Ryan’s reach, Logan began treading water. “You’re coming with us. I don’t want to hurt you, but if I have to, I will.”

  The arrogant laugh was back. “You don’t get it. I already reported in that I was pursuing a suspicious boat. The others’ are out looking for me now. They’ll probably be here before we even get out of the water.”

  “Which way did you tell them we were going?” Logan asked. “North?”

  Ryan said nothing.

  “Take a look around. You see those lights right over there?” Logan pointed at the east shore. “That’s right about where you originally spotted us. We’re already past of that point now. This current’s moving pretty quickly, too. In a few minutes we won’t be able to even see them anymore. And your friends? They’ll just keep going in the other direction.”

  Ryan tried to keep his face blank, but he was doing a bad job at it.

  “We’re going to swim back t
o the boats, and you’re going to come with us,” Logan said.

  Ryan looked at him for a moment, then gave a reluctant nod.

  As they neared the boats, Logan saw that Daeng had moved into the one with the working motor.

  “Where’s the pilot?” Logan called out, not seeing the guy who’d been with Ryan.

  “Swam off right after you two fell in.”

  Suddenly concerned, Logan said, “Which way did he go? We’ve got to get him before he gets to shore. If he tells them about us…”

  “Don’t worry,” Daeng said. “He won’t. He’ll be concerned they’d blame him for you getting away. I guarantee you he’ll lay low until they’re gone.”

  This didn’t completely relax Logan. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am.”

  As Ryan neared the boat, Logan said, “Get in.”

  “You should let me go,” Ryan told him. “I promise, I won’t say anything to anyone.”

  “Get in the boat.”

  “Come on. What are you going to do, huh? Beat me up? No matter what, I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  Logan swam in closer. “Get. In. The. Boat.”

  Ryan glanced down at the water, resigned. As he turned and reached out, Logan thought he was going to grab the hull and pull himself in, but instead he put his hand on the side and pushed himself under.

  Logan immediately dove after him, then blindly reached out, grasping at the area where he thought Ryan might be. His fingers brushed against a pant leg, but it quickly slipped away. He swam beneath the hull, and reached out again. This time he got a hold of Ryan’s foot for half a second before it kicked out, and he lost his grip.

  The breath he’d taken before going under had been a quick one, and as he passed under the bottom of the boat, he could feel his air running out. He found the hull with his hand, then followed it up until his head broke the surface between the two longboats.

  As he breathed, he looked for Ryan, but there was no sign of him.

  “Did I miss him? Did he come up?” he yelled at Daeng.

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  Logan had to find him. Unlike the pilot, Ryan would definitely go back to the others. He expelled all his air, then took as deep a breath as he could, and went back under.

  He knew Ryan had to have come up for air somewhere. There must have been a break in the vines, or perhaps there was space on the other side of the boat that Daeng and Logan had been on. That was something he could check.

  He passed under the hull of the second boat, then felt his way back toward the surface, but he was blocked before he could get there by a solid wall of vines. No way Ryan could have come up there.

  Just as Logan was about to move his hand off of the vines, he felt several unnatural tugs. He tried to get a fix on which direction they had come from, then pushed back down, and propelled himself under the floating island.

  He used one arm to power his swim, and the other to search for Ryan. For the first few seconds, the only things he touched were stray vines dangling down below the mass. Then the back of his hand knocked against something definitely not vine-like. As he turned his wrist to get a better angle on it, it pulled away, but not before he got the impression he’d come in contact with a leg.

  His lungs weren’t burning yet, but he was quite a ways under the vines, so he needed to make sure he saved enough time to swim back to open water. He decided to allow himself fifteen more seconds, then reached out again to see if Ryan was still nearby.

  Once more he found one of a leg, but instead of kicking him off again, Ryan let him grab hold this time, then pulled his leg up in a tuck, bringing Logan to him. Logan was about to let go, worried that Ryan was just drawing him in so he could kick him in the head, but then Ryan grabbed desperately at his wrist, and seemed to be urging Logan to pull him.

  Logan did, but was only able to move him a foot before Ryan stopped with a jerk. He tried again, but the result was the same.

  Heat slowly began building at the bottom of Logan’s lungs. Ignoring it, he swum in closer, and felt along Ryan’s torso and up to his shoulders. That’s when he discovered what was wrong.

  Ryan’s arm was entangled in the vines.

  Logan ran his hands rapidly across them, attempting to find a way to free him.

  Suddenly Ryan began thrashing. Logan began working faster, pulling at the vines, and ripping them from underneath.

  Ryan jerked. Once. Twice. Then he stopped moving completely.

  Logan kept at it even as his lungs began screaming to stop what he was doing and get to the surface.

  He yanked on a clump of vines, then suddenly Ryan’s arm fell free.

  Quickly he grabbed Ryan around the shoulders, then swam out from under the vegetation, and up to the river’s surface. As soon as his head broke through the water, he sucked in as much air as he could.

  “Daeng!” he yelled. “Over here.”

  He couldn’t see the boat, but he knew it had to be nearby.

  “Daeng!”

  He propped Ryan’s head on his shoulder, painfully aware he wasn’t breathing. Not far away he heard the longboat’s motor kick in. As soon as Daeng pulled beside him, they got Ryan onto the boat, then Logan flopped in after him.

  Logan had learned CPR in the Army, and had unfortunately been in the position to have utilized it more than once. Starting in on Ryan, he was hopeful because of the kid’s age and physical condition that he could bring him back. But after nearly ten minutes, he realized it was no use.

  Ryan was dead.

  Daeng waited a few seconds, then said, “Let’s put him back in the water.”

  “The water? Why?” Logan asked.

  “You’re after the girl, not him. If someone sees you with the body and the police find out, they’re going to ask questions. You’ll be detained. Can you afford that?”

  No, Logan thought. It was just like with Anthony. He would have to let someone else deal with it.

  Carefully, they rolled the body over the side, and dumped Ryan into the Chao Phraya. Logan heard Daeng whispering under his breath, then realized that he was praying. He thought maybe he should do the same, too, but no prayer came to mind.

  When he looked at the river again, Ryan was gone.

  29

  Though Logan and Daeng had narrowed down the part of the riverfront where Elyse was most likely being held, they still had no idea of her exact location. They decided their best bet was to encircle the area with watchers—two crews in longboats “fishing” on the river, and ten other men scattered in an arc on the landside. Daeng thought he could drum up maybe four to six additional men that could roam the area, and try to pick up leads from the people who lived in the neighborhood.

  As much as Logan didn’t want to, the thing he needed to do was get a few hours of sleep. Daeng promised to call the instant anything happened, then dropped him off in front of his hotel.

  Though it was the phone that woke Logan four hours later, it wasn’t Daeng on the other end. It was Ruth.

  “Where exactly are you?”

  “Huh?” Logan said, still half-asleep. “What are you talking about?”

  “You left the country, didn’t you?”

  “Is that a problem?” Before she could reply, he said, “Wait. Just give me a second.” He pulled himself out of bed, and carried the phone into the bathroom where he splashed some water on his face. Once he felt his brain starting to work again, he put the phone back to his ear. “What’s going on, Ruth?”

  “I had an…unexpected conversation this afternoon.” It was still Friday evening in New York.

  “Unexpected?”

  “Forty-five minutes ago, Jon Jordan came into my office.” Jordan was the C.O.O of Forbus Systems International. He was the prick who’d been behind turning Logan into a scapegoat, though Logan could never prove that. “He wants to know why I was interested in Bracher Schwartz and Associates.”

  Logan tried to place the name, but it was unfamiliar. “Who are they
?”

  “Bracher Schwartz is a New York law firm. The same firm that was involved with setting up the shell companies that included Kajiwara Research. Remember them? Your friends who chartered that jet?”

  She had his attention now. “This law firm, they’re real? Not a shell?”

  “Very real, and, apparently, very well connected. One of the senior partners plays golf with Mr. Jordan.”

  “Well, that’s…interesting. Do you think the shell companies lead back to Forbus?”

  “If they did, I certainly wouldn’t be calling you,” she said. “But I did touch a nerve, that’s for sure. Mr. Jordan was also curious why I was looking at our Burma files.”

  “You have a problem, Ruth. Someone’s spying on you.”

  She huffed out a derisive breath. “They spy on all of us here. That’s the nature of our business, remember?”

  “Tell me more about this Bracher Schwartz place.”

  “Harper, I’m calling you to tell you I can’t help you any more.”

  He paused. “Look, I know I’ve put you in a bad spot, but I didn’t mean to do that. Ruth…a young woman’s life is in danger.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He hesitated again, then said, “She’s…been abducted.”

  “Abducted?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the authorities?”

  “If they get involve, this girl won’t see twenty-one.”

  “Are you just feeding me a line?”

  “No. I’m not. You know I’d never do that.”

  “Dammit.” She took a few seconds, then said, “Okay, here’s the deal. This law firm handles a lot of international business. They have offices not just in New York, but in D.C., London, Geneva, and Singapore. They’re deal makers.”

  “Do they do any business with the Burmese government?”

  “Given your earlier request, I actually thought about that. But as far as I can tell, nothing. Burma’s kind of a touchy area. It’s actually illegal for U.S. firms to do business there. Well, technically, the Executive Order states that companies are not allowed to do business with the top people in the government or their families, but if you want to do business there, that’s who you have to deal with.”