Little Girl Gone (A Logan Harper Thriller)

by Brett Battles

  Logan knew that didn’t mean there weren’t ways to work around it. “Did you happen to check if they actually had a Robert Andrews on staff?”

  “I did, and they don’t. But…”

  “But what?”

  A pause, then “Hold on, I’m going to text you a photo.” He could hear her moving her phone around for several seconds. “There, sent. You should get it in a moment.”

  “What’s the picture of?” he asked.

  “I just want you to look at it first. It might be nothing.”

  Before he could ask anything more, his phone buzzed. He accessed the text, then touched the photo so it would fill his display. It was a group shot—two older men in front, a couple of younger guys to the side, and three others in the background. They were on some steps leading down from a building.

  He switched the phone to speaker so he could talk and view the picture at the same time. “Okay. So, what am I looking at?”

  “The picture’s from the New York Times. It’s the outside of the Federal Courthouse in New York City. The two older gentlemen are Samuel Schwartz and Charles Bracher. The two others with them aren’t important. I want you to look at the three in the back, specifically the guy on the right. You should be able to enlarge it enough.”

  He centered the person in question, and increased the size of the photo, then stared at it for a moment. “That’s him.”

  “Robert Andrews?”

  “Yes. I’m sure of it.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Who is he?”

  Silence, then, “His real name is Scott Bell.”

  “He works for Bracher Schwartz?”

  “Technically, he runs his own security firm. Of course, it is located in the same building as Bracher Schwartz’s home office.” She was quiet for a moment. “I went out on a limb, Logan. I talked to one of our people in New York. He says Bell handles all the firm’s dirty work.”

  “Ruth, you didn’t have to take that chance.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s already done.”

  “Do you trust this person enough that he won’t tell anyone you talked to him?”

  “He’s a decent guy. He won’t say anything.”

  “So which client is Bell doing work for now?”

  “That, I don’t know. But my friend did tell me who some of their clients are, though.”

  “Who?”

  She let out a not quite tension free laugh. “You have any openings at your garage? I might need a job after this.”

  “We’d be happy to have you.”

  She paused, then said, “One of their big clients is a Silicon Valley tech firm called Okomoto Systems. They specialize in mobile devices and applications. Then, of course, there’s Laredyne Industries. You’ve heard of them.”

  He had. They were a defense contractor like Forbus. “What about their connection to Burma?”

  “I didn’t really look into them, but I doubt it. Again, it would be illegal.”

  “True, but how many times has Forbus gotten into gray areas overseas?” Logan asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He smirked. “What about other clients?”

  “LRB Oil, H. Wick, a medical supply company out of Indianapolis, a regional fast food chain. That’s about all I got at this point.”

  H. Wick? He’d heard that name recently. But why would a medical supply company be involved in—

  Angie.

  The company she had stolen the money from. Hadn’t she said it was H. Wick Medical Supply? The company may very well not have been part of what was going on, but at the very least their attorneys—Bracher Schwartz—would have been aware of Angie’s embezzlement. She would easily have become an asset they could exploit.

  “Thank you, Ruth. You’ve done more than I could have ever hoped.”

  “You know, you never actually told me where you are?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  She paused. “Please tell me you’re not in Burma.”

  “I’m not in Burma.”

  There was another pause. “You’re in Thailand aren’t you? That plane.”

  “Yes.”

  “Be careful, okay? And…and I hope you find the girl.”

  “Me, too,” he said, but by then she’d already hung up.

  After he showered and got dressed, he looked at Bell’s picture again.

  A law firm fixer with a penchant for kidnapping, and, if Logan was right, murder. What kind of game was he playing? And was this actually for the law firm, or was he acting for someone else entirely? The generals in Myanmar, perhaps? As ludicrous as that idea had been at one point, Logan felt it was a very real possibility now.

  He called Daeng. “Sorry to wake you,” he said as soon as Daeng picked up.

  “You didn’t. I just got off the phone with one of my men by the river.”

  “And?”

  “Go downstairs. Someone will pick you up in a few minutes.”

  Knowing he needed to stay flexible, Logan brought his backpack with him as he headed out of the hotel. At the curb, he found the same motorcycle driver who’d taken him to Christina’s the night before.

  This time the ride only lasted fifteen minutes before the driver pulled to the curb a couple of blocks shy of the river, in an area where there seemed to be few other farang around.

  Daeng was standing in the doorway of a pharmacy a few feet away, talking on his phone. There was a bandage on his injured ear, but otherwise he looked the same as he had the night before, save for the T-shirt. Einstein was out, and Bender, the robot from Futurama, was in.

  As Logan walked over, Daeng nodded a hello, then held up a finger indicating he wouldn’t be long.

  When he hung up, Logan asked “What’s going on?”

  “We figured out what building they were in.”

  “Were?”

  “That’s the bad news,” Daeng said. “Either they were already gone by the time my men were in place, or they snuck out this morning and we missed them.”

  Disappointed was not nearly a strong enough word for what Logan suddenly felt. “Is that possible?”

  “Anything is possible,” Daeng said. “But I chose my men carefully. It would have been very unusual for them to have missed anything. But there is good news. They’re not all gone.”

  “What?”

  “The girl and most of the others, they’re not there anymore. But two farang men were still inside when we found the building.”

  “Did you detain them?”

  Daeng shook his head. “Not yet. They’re still there. Apparently, they’re cleaning up.”

  Of course, Logan thought. Making sure there were no traces that they’d been there. Just like back in L.A.

  “Do you want me to have my men move in?” Daeng asked.

  Logan said nothing for a moment, thinking. If Daeng’s people grabbed them now, who knew how long it might take to get them to divulge where Elyse was.

  “No,” he said. “We’ll let them finish what they’re doing, then follow them. In the meantime, get me as close as you can. I want to see exactly who was left behind.”

  30

  Logan and Daeng spent five and a half hours in an empty apartment across an intersection from the building Elyse had been held in.

  More than once, Logan asked if it was possible that the men who were supposedly still there might have snuck out some other way. Each time, Daeng had dutifully checked, but the report would always come back that the men were still inside.

  “I’m not sure I’ve actually told you thanks, yet,” Logan said after Daeng checked for him one more time. “Without you and your men, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  Daeng shrugged. “You would have found her. You would have just done it a different way. You’re more resourceful than you look.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’m serious, though,” Logan said after a fe
w seconds. “You’ve done a lot more than you needed to.”

  “I’ve done exactly what I needed to.”

  Logan looked at him. Daeng’s eyes were focused through the window on the other building, but after a moment, he glanced over. “What?”

  “That’s just kind of an odd statement.”

  “Is it? Aren’t you doing the same?”

  The question surprised Logan. He was doing what he felt he had to do, but was it exactly what he had to do? Only if he were able to bring Elyse home alive. Otherwise, what he was currently doing would turn out not to be enough. Again.

  Daeng seemed to sense Logan’s discomfort. He smiled, then said, “How’s the weather in L.A.?”

  Logan looked out the window. “Nice when I left. Seventies.”

  “I miss that. Most of the time it doesn’t even get down to seventy during the night here.”

  “How long were you in Los Angeles?”

  Daeng was silent for a moment. “Almost ten years.”

  “You must have been young when you got there.”

  “Eight and a half.”

  Logan felt like he probably asked more than he should have, so he said nothing. But, apparently he was wrong.

  After a brief pause, Daeng said, “My mom had died three months before, and my dad…well, let’s just say he wasn’t cut out for raising a kid on his own. So he sent me off to live with his sister in the States.”

  On the street below, Logan watched a pickup truck drive by, mattresses stacked high in the back.

  “I was fortunate, though,” Daeng went on. “My aunt had loved my mom, so she made it a point that I learned all I could about my Burmese background. My father would have never done that. My mother’s people, my people…they haven’t had it easy. The things the generals over there have done…” He gestured in what Logan assumed was the direction of Burma. “No one should do those things.” He paused, then glanced over. “Would you believe I used to be a monk?”

  “I thought I heard somewhere that all Thai men spend a few months being a monk.”

  Daeng waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I’m not talking about a temporary monk. I spent three years in that life. The temple I lived in was in a town several hours north of here. It was peaceful. At the time, I thought I would never do anything else. But in 2007, things changed. That fall, there were protests in Burma.”

  “I’ve read about them,” Logan said.

  “I felt moved by this, and thought that the time had finally come for my mother’s people to free themselves. When I heard that the Burmese monks in Rangoon had taken up on the side of the people, and were actually leading the protests, I knew I couldn’t just stay here in Thailand and do nothing. Against the wishes of my temple, I snuck across the border and made my way to Rangoon. I wanted to do what I could.”

  Like Tooney’s wife.

  “For two days I wore my robes and marched in the protests with my brother monks, and my mother’s countrymen. There was an excitement in the air, a feeling that maybe we could actually change things this time. I stayed at a temple with over two hundred other monks right in the city, but since I had come late, and was the outsider, I was given floor space in a room that was normally used as a classroom with three others. The next day, all two hundred monks were going to go to a rally. It was to be the biggest yet. Only in the middle of the night, the secret police came.” Daeng paused. “The first thing I heard was screaming from the hall where most of the monks were staying. Somehow the four of us in the classroom had been overlooked. I wanted to rush out and try to help, but the others held me back. They knew what would happen if I went out there. Many monks were hauled away that night and never seen again. If I’d opened that door, I would have been one of them.

  “Instead, my friends led me out a back window and away from the temple. We found a family that gave us clothes so that we could change out of our robes, and hats so that we could try to cover our bald heads. Those three monks stayed with me all the way to the border. But they didn’t cross with me. They wanted to make sure I got out, so I could let people know what had happened.” He stopped again, his eyes watching the street, but Logan wasn’t really sure which city he was actually seeing. “They went back to Rangoon to continue the fight. Two of them disappeared the next day. The other was crippled.

  “When I came back here, I never put my robes on again. It wasn’t some kind of protest or fear that the Myanmar Secret Police would find me. I was back in Thailand. There was nothing they could do to me. What made me quit was that moment in the temple in Rangoon while my brothers were screaming in pain, and the temple was filled with chaos. I wanted to rush out…yes, to help them, but I also wanted to hurt those who were hurting my fellow monks. I felt rage, and hatred, and it didn’t go away when I returned. I knew I couldn’t be a monk anymore.

  “What I could do, though, was find other ways to help. Make some money on the black market here, send some much needed supplies there. Help smuggle out videos so the rest of the world could see what’s happening over the border, and make sure the lines of communication were never severed. Of course, no matter how much I do, it’s not enough.”

  He turned and looked at Logan. “This Elyse, she might be American, but she’s also Burmese. We have to look out for one another, you know.” After nearly a minute of silence he said, “What about you? Why are you doing this?”

  Once more, Logan was caught off guard. Why was he doing this? First and foremost for Elyse, because she was in no position to help herself. And for Tooney, of course. And even for his father.

  But he was also doing it for Carl.

  And, ultimately, for the girl in the street.

  “I’m helping a friend,” he said, and left it at that.

  Just after noon, Daeng’s cell phone rang. He smiled as he talked and nodded at Logan.

  “They’re finishing up,” he said when he was through.

  They positioned themselves so that they had a clear view of the door they expected the men would use as an exit. Five minutes later, it opened, and the two men walked out, each carrying a large duffle bag.

  “Recognize either of them?” Daeng asked.

  “Both.” The first was the guy who’d carried Elyse onto the airplane in Santa Monica. The second was the guy Logan assumed was Aaron Hughes.

  “So we’ve got the right guys?”

  “Definitely.”

  Logan and Daeng watched as the men flagged down a taxi, then hopped in. A few seconds after it took off again, a motorcycle taxi with one of Daeng’s men on it followed. And three minutes after that, Logan and Daeng were doing the same in Daeng’s car. They drove around for a half hour, then the driver, who’d been keeping in constant contact with the guy on the motorcycle, turned his head and spoke with Daeng.

  “The cab pulled over, but only one of the men got out,” Daeng translated. “I have people following both now, but which one do you want us to stick with?”

  “The younger guy,” Logan said, thinking of Aaron.

  Daeng had a quick exchange with the driver, then said, “He’s the one still in the taxi.”

  “Then we follow the taxi.”

  Logan checked his watch. It was just after 4:30. Who knew where Elyse was now? His only hope was that Aaron or the other guy would lead them to her.

  A couple of minutes later, Aaron’s taxi made a second stop.

  “He’s taken the duffle bags out, and entered a construction site,” Daeng told Logan, relaying the information from the driver.

  “Can you get us close enough so we can see?” Logan asked.

  The driver took them to within a block of the structure. It was a ratty, unfinished building that looked like construction had stopped soon after they’d poured the concrete for each of the seven floors, and long before any interior work or walls on the outside had begun. Moss and dirt covered the pillars, while wild grass and bushes had been left to flourish across the lot. Logan got the impression that several people were making the place their not-so
-temporary home.

  Daeng took the phone from the driver so he could talk with his man on the scene. “He’s gone all the way through the building to the open area in back,” he said to Logan as he listened.

  Logan looked ahead, straining to see, but that portion of the lot was out of sight.

  “He’s talking to someone…a squatter, it sounds like…my guy can’t get close enough to hear the conversation…okay, the farang is handing over the duffle bags…the squatter’s carrying them to…I guess there’s a fire pit back there…he’s putting the bags in the fire…the farang’s watching…the bags are fully in flames now…okay, hold on, hold on…they’re walking back toward the street and… the farang is handing him some money…”

  Talk about thorough, Logan thought. Aaron and his friends were apparently not willing to just toss whatever they’d cleaned up into the trash. They wanted it burned. That was too bad. It would have been nice to see what was inside those bags.

  “…he’s heading back to the taxi now,” Daeng finished.

  Logan looked down the street. A few seconds later, Aaron came out from the building and climbed into his cab. The pursuit then continued as before.

  The third stop was at a building that couldn’t have been more different than the one Aaron had just visited. It was a modern-looking, glass business tower, twenty stories high. One of Daeng’s men was able to get into the lobby just as the elevator doors closed on the car Aaron was in. The man watched the indicator. It stopped on the fourteenth floor, then headed back down.

  “Send him up,” Logan said, after Daeng asked him what he wanted to do.

  According to the man, there were several different suites on the fourteenth floor: an import-export business, an accounting firm, and a few offices that were only marked with names of people.

  “Make sure he doesn’t give himself away,” Logan warned.

  Daeng shook his head. “He won’t.”

  Suddenly he pressed the phone tightly against his ear, listening hard.

  “I think the farang just came out of one of the offices. My man can’t talk.”

  There was a tense several minutes when they didn’t know what was happening, then Daeng said, “They’re in the main lobby, heading out. He says another man came out of the office, too. A farang also. They both got onto the elevator, and my man joined them.”