Brett Battles - Little Girl Gone

Daeng ordered a bowl of noodles, while Logan went with only coffee.

“So you still want to try it,” Daeng said once Logan had gone back over the plan they sketched out after they’d gotten rid of Aaron.

Logan nodded. “It could be important.”

“It could also cause problems.”

“I’m trusting that you’ll be able to keep that from happening.”

Daeng grunted, but said nothing else.

For the next half hour, Logan did little more than stare out the window at the tropical jungle that covered the hills around them. The train was moving slowly now, the upward climb a challenge for the engine.

As he was contemplating getting another cup of coffee, Daeng said softly, “Here they come.”

Logan casually raised his empty cup to his lips, pretending to take a final drink, while Daeng focused on what little was left in his bowl of noodles. From the corner of his eye, Logan could see two people walking past their table, then suddenly stopped.

“You’re the guy who helped me last night, aren’t you?” a voice asked.

Logan looked over. The man who spoke was the guy Logan had helped by playing doorman. Standing next to him was the other member of their group.

“Hey,” Logan said, smiling. “Beer guy, right?”

“Yeah,” the man replied, no humor in his voice. “We’re looking for a friend of ours. Wondering if you might have seen him.”

Logan kept the smile on his face, staying in friendly-tourist mode. “How much did you guys have to drink?”

“He’s in his early twenties,” the man said, ignoring the comment. “About my height. Short brown hair. White guy.”

Logan paused like he was thinking. “There’ve been a few people like that in here this morning, but most headed toward the back of the train when they left. Was he traveling back there?”

“No.”

“Hmmm.” Logan shrugged. “Sorry. I guess not.”

“What about your friend?” the other guy asked, looking at Daeng.

“Oh, uh, I’m not even sure he speaks English.” To Daeng, Logan said, “Do you understand?”

Daeng glanced up from his bowl. “No speak good,” he said, his accent thick.

“You see another white guy like me? Younger?” Logan asked.

“ Farang everywhere on train. Many. Many.”

Logan turned back to the men. “I don’t think he’s going to be much help. Your friend’s probably at the end of the train, hanging out with the backpackers.”

“Thanks,” the guy said.

“No problem.”

As soon as they passed the snack counter, and disappeared down the passageway, Logan was up and heading toward the front of the train. Daeng, per their plan, stayed right where he was.

Logan moved quickly through first class until he reached the door to Aaron’s cabin. There was no lock, so it slid open easily when he pushed on the handle. The curtain was already drawn across the window in the door, so he was able to work without being watched.

There were only two berths in the room. That surprised him. Counting Aaron, there was three of them. Logan located all the luggage, but there was no backpack. He was sure Aaron hadn’t lied to him about that. So where was it?

He quickly went through each of bag anyway, but the envelope wasn’t in any of them.

Standing up, he frowned. Two beds, three people, with beds barely big enough for even one.

They must have another cabin. There was no other explanation.

He was about to head back into the hallway when he realized there was a door in the sidewall. If he’d noticed it earlier, his mind must have written it off as the entrance to an en suite bathroom. But now, he realized, that didn’t make any sense at all. There was a toilet and sink at the end of every car. Having one in a cabin would take up too much space.

He tried the door. It was unlocked, so he stepped through, and found himself in the neighboring cabin. Here only one berth had been used. And the bag on the floor was a black backpack exactly like the one Aaron had described.

As Logan took a step toward it he heard the front door to the other room starting to open. Quickly, he shut the adjoining door, then went to the backpack, and zipped open the front pocket. The large, rectangular envelope was right inside.

Grab it and go! A voice in his mind told him.

But he knew that might be a mistake. What was in this envelope might not be that important, yet could cause problems if it went missing.

He shot a quick glance at the door, then unclasped the flap, and slipped the contents halfway out.

In the other cabin, he could hear someone moving around, but no voices.

The envelope held two packets of papers, each stapled in the top corner. The language the documents were written in used a whole different alphabet than English. An though he’d only been in Thailand a short time, he’d seen enough Thai script to know this document didn’t look like it was in Thai, either. He looked at the second packet. It was hard to tell for sure, but he got the feeling that it was a duplicate of the first.

Making a split-second decision, he sealed one of the packets back in the envelope, and returned it to the backpack. The other he kept, then headed for the door that opened to the public passageway.

He paused, listening. Whoever was in the other room was still there. As carefully as he could, he slid the main door open and stepped out.

Two minutes later, he walked back into the dining car. Daeng was talking to the man Logan had helped the night before, but the other guy wasn’t around. Without looking, Logan rolled the document into a tube, concealing the words written on it, and walked up.

“Find your friend?” he asked.

The man turned quickly, then relaxed when he saw Logan. “Not yet.”

“Have you talked to the porters? They could probably help.”

“Thanks,” he said, in a way that told Logan they’d already done that. The man looked at Daeng. “Thank you, too, for trying to help.”

“I keep eyes open, okay,” Daeng said. “If see, I tell.”

“Thanks.”

The man headed toward first class. As soon as Logan was sure he’d left the car, he said, “I thought you were going to try to keep both of them away.”

“I’m sorry. The other one shot right past me. I take it he didn’t see you.”

Logan shook his head.

Daeng looked at the paper in his hand. “You took it?”

“There were two. I think they’re the same thing, but I have no idea what they say.”

He unrolled it, and handed it to Daeng.

After glancing at the first page, Daeng said, “This is in Burmese.”

“Can you read it?”

“Not quickly, but yes.” Daeng scanned it for a moment. “It’s some kind of contract. A lease, I think.”

“You mean like for a building?”

Daeng read some more, then shook his head. “Like for oil rights.”

36

The train pulled into Chiang Mai at 9:40 a.m. Daeng got off ahead of the crowd and headed straight into the station, while Logan let several passengers exit before he stepped onto the long platform.

With the population of Chiang Mai nowhere near the ten million that lived in Bangkok, it was no surprise that its train station was much smaller than the one in the nation’s capital. Logan guessed the red-roofed main building would probably have fit entirely within the central hall of Hualamphong. But compared to the stations they’d stopped at through the night, Chiang Mai’s was huge.

Logan slowly made his way down the covered platform, all the while keeping an eye on the crowd leaving the train. So far, he had yet to see Aaron’s two friends.

At the end of the platform, he passed through one of several large, arched openings into the main building. Just inside he found a tourist information booth, and let the girl who was manning it try to talk him into staying at one of the local hotels.

She was in the middle of her pitch when Aaron’s two friends passed by on their way through the station toward the parking area out front.

“Thank you,” Logan said to the girl, cutting her off. “I’ll think about it.”

He fell in behind the men. As they neared the front entrance, Logan spotted Daeng standing to one side, his phone to his ear. The men walked within a couple of feet of him, not giving Daeng a glance.

Logan paused under the cover of the station, and watched them walk out to the curb, then look around. Within seconds, a car drove up, and stopped directly in front of them.

I know you , Logan thought as the driver climbed out.

It was Tooney’s attacker.

The two men from the train placed their bags in the trunk, then all three got into the car.

Just after the vehicle pulled away, Logan walked quickly out of the station, and put his hand up to call over a taxi.

“No,” Daeng said, coming up behind him and grabbing him arm.

He guided Logan over to a sedan parked in a nearby spot, then told him to get in.

There was a young guy already behind the wheel. His head was clean shaven, and he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Daeng spoke rapidly to him, then the kid dropped the car into gear, and they took off. Their driver turned out to be more than up to the task of following the other car. He was able to keep them within sight without ever getting too close.

After a while they came to the outskirts of the city. There were still buildings and businesses and homes around, but they were spread out, and the businesses seemed to be more focused on manufacturing and similar services than on retail.

Ahead, the other car’s brake lights flashed suddenly, then the vehicle took a left off the road. It stopped momentarily in front of a gate built into the opening of a cinderblock wall, then the gate lifted, and it drove inside.

“Keep going past,” Logan said.

A couple of hundred feet on, they made a U-turn, then stopped on the shoulder in front of a roadside restaurant. They watched for several minutes to see if the car reappeared, but it didn’t.

“At the far front corner,” Daeng said. “You see him?”

Logan looked. Just visible above the top of the wall was the head of a man. He seemed to be watching the road.

“Yeah,” he said.

“We should go into the restaurant. He may have spotted us when we turned, and he’ll be more curious if we don’t get out.”

The place wasn’t much more than a glorified food cart with a permanent roof over the eating area. They took a table near the front so they could keep an eye across the street, then, for appearance sake, Daeng ordered them some food.

“What do you think?” he asked Logan.

“Aaron said the hand over was going to happen today.”

“You think that’s where it’s supposed to take place?”

Logan looked over at the wall. It encircled a large property with a couple of commercial-type buildings in the center. “Figure the guys from the train must have reported that Aaron was missing before we even got to Chiang Mai. If I were in charge, I would want to talk to them in person as soon as possible. What I wouldn’t want, though, was have them brought someplace where I had another meeting set up. So either the hand off’s happening right now somewhere else, and these guys are just sitting there waiting, or it’s happening later, and they’re having their debrief right now.” He looked at Daeng. “I’m going to assume it’s the latter.”

“If that’s the case,” Daeng said, “there’s a pretty good chance the girl is—”

“—right over there,” Logan finished for him, his eyes firmly fixed on the cinderblock wall. “Which means I need to get inside.”