Brett Battles - Little Girl Gone

The man’s eyes narrowed as he studied Daeng for a moment. Then he replied using the same language.

As they talked, the four men at the table rose and walked over.

After several moments, Daeng said something that made the man glance at Logan, then turn to the others and say something. With a nod, one of the big men walked over to the staircase at the back of the dining area, and went up.

“Perhaps you would like to join me for a drink while we wait,” the smaller man said.

It seemed like more of an order than an invitation, but Logan wasn’t in an obeying mood. “Wait for what?”

“It’s okay,” Daeng told him. “They’re letting her know we’re here.”

As they sat down at the table, the man said, “You can call me Taw.” He then looked at Logan, expectantly.

“Logan. Logan Harper.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Harper. You keep fine company.”

Logan tried figure out if he was being sarcastic, but the sentiment seemed sincere.

“Would you like something?” Taw asked. “A beer, perhaps? Maybe a soda?”

“I’m fine,” Logan said.

Taw looked at Daeng.

“Nothing for me, either.”

The man glanced toward reception. “A water, please,” he called out. “Just one.”

It turned out they didn’t have time to have a drink anyway. The big man returned before the water got to the table, and they were immediately escorted upstairs by Taw.

He took them to a door at the end of the hall on the third floor. Another Asian man was standing beside it. He was big like the guys downstairs, and Logan would have laid money on the fact that he was armed. The man opened the door as soon as they arrived, and Taw led Daeng and Logan inside.

The NS Guest House was not the Ritz. Then again, it wasn’t even close to the worst place Logan had ever stayed at either. The floor was tiled, nothing fancy, but durable. The furniture, too, looked more like it had been built to last than to be pleasing to the eye. There was a window on the far wall, but the curtain was drawn across it.

Sitting on the bed was a tiny woman. Though Logan hadn’t seen her in person in twenty years, even if he hadn’t watched the videos he’d downloaded, he would have still recognized Sein. She had they same beautiful, yet slightly stern face, and eyes that seemed to see more than just the surface of things. The only change he could see was a maturity, not so much in looks, but in the way she carried herself. Perhaps it was the years of speaking out and educating the world, fighting what must have seemed like a never-ending battle. In this respect, she actually looked older than her years.

Beside her was an Asian man of average size. He wore glasses, and had flecks of gray in his hair. By the way his arm was draped around her shoulders, Logan knew he had once been the young man from the refuge camp who’d come looking for Sein after he’d finished high school. Khin, Tooney had said his name was.

“This is Daeng, and this is Logan Harper,” Taw said.

“It’s an honor to met you, Daw Sein,” Daeng said, bowing his head.

“I’ve heard of you, Daeng,” she replied. “I know of the sacrifices you have made. The Burmese people are indeed lucky to have you on their side.”

“I only do what I can.”

Sein smiled briefly, then turned to Logan. “Why are you here, Mr. Harper?”

“Because Tooney asked for my help.”

It took her a moment to realize what he’d said. When she spoke again, the sense of control she’d displayed a moment before slipped a little. “My…father?”

Logan nodded. “You don’t remember me, but I remember you. I went to Cambria High School with your sister. Anka was a few years behind me, but we were there at the same time for a while. My father owns Dunn Right Auto Repair. Maybe you remember that. He and Tooney are best friends.”

She stared at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t…I don’t remember you.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said, shrugging. “I was fifteen.”

“I still don’t understand why you are here.”

“Elyse was supposed to visit your father several days go. When she didn’t show up, he became concerned, and asked me to see if I could find her.”

“You’re a long way from California,” Khin said.

“I haven’t found her yet.”

Sein frowned. “This only happened because of my father.”

“How do you figure that?” Logan asked.

“Elyse wanted to go to school in Los Angeles. She wanted to be close to him. If she’d gone somewhere else this wouldn’t have happened.”

Her words took him by surprise. “Do you really think the reason she was taken was because she decided to live close to Tooney? They took her to silence you , not your father.”

She pushed herself off the bed. “Are you trying to say it’s my fault?”

Taw took a step forward. “I’m sorry. I should not have brought them up.” He grabbed Logan’s arm, intending to usher him out.

But Logan wasn’t budging. “No. I’m not saying it’s your fault at all. You’re doing what needs to be done. I’m just saying that’s what happened. It’s not about blame.” He paused. “You do know they almost killed your father because of this, right?”

She scoffed. “Is that what he told you? Another of his cowardly lies, I think.”

Now Logan was pissed. “No, he didn’t tell me. He didn’t have to, because I was the one who walked in and saw the gun pointed at his head. I was the one who stopped it from happening. I was the one who made sure he got medical attention.”

She hesitated, then said in a voice more tentative than before, “Why would they want to kill him?”

“Can’t you see why? Because your daughter was going to visit him. If she didn’t show up, he’d raise an alarm. But if he was dead, no one would know she was gone until well after they got her out of the country.”

“But…but they still got her out.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But they brought me along. That, I guarantee you, is not something they planned on.”

“What can you do?” she asked. “You’re already too late. The only thing left is for me to trade myself for her.”

“That’s exactly what they’ve wanted from the beginning. Don’t you see that?” When Harp had told him she was coming to Thailand, he realized the target had never really been Elyse at all. It had been her mother the whole time. The troublemaker.

“It doesn’t matter what I see,” she told him, power returning to her voice. “She’s my daughter . I have no choice.”

“I can get her free.”

“How?”

“I just need to know where the trade is supposed to happen.”

“And if I tell you this, what are you going to do?”

“Get her away from them.”

“What if whatever you try goes wrong? What if they keep her? What if she dies ?”

“You need to trust me.”

Daeng began talking in the language he’d used with Taw. Burmese, Logan assumed. But he only got a few words out before Sein held up a hand, stopping him.

“I’m sorry,” she said in English. “I can’t take the chance.” She nodded at Taw, and turned her back on Logan and Daeng.

“Please,” Logan said. “At least tell us where it’s supposed to happen.”

Without turning, she said, “Tell my father you did everything you could. Good bye, gentlemen.”

Daeng and Logan continued to protest, but she said nothing more. Taw called out, and the man in the hallway came in. Between the two of them, they got Logan and Daeng outside, and forcibly guided them to the stairs.

Logan’s mind was churning. They only choices left now were to either follow Sein or Bell’s group to the meeting point, and hope an opportunity presented itself.

They’d only gone down a couple of steps when Taw paused. He looked back at Logan and Daeng, then whispered, “ Wat Doi Suthep. Three forty-five.” He immediately turned around and continued down the stairs.

Logan glanced at Daeng. “Do you know—”

“Go, go,” Daeng whispered, cutting him off.

39

Wat meant temple in Thai. And Wat Doi Suthep was the most famous temple in the Chiang Mai area. It was located about twenty minutes outside of town, in the hills overlooking the city.

Logan and Daeng were able to get there by 1 p.m., a little more than two and a half hours prior to when Sein was supposed to exchange herself for her daughter.

The temple was not exactly street side. After walking through a windy area packed with vendors selling food and souvenirs, they came to the foot of a three-hundred-step-long staircase that led up a steep hill to the actual wat . Lining both sides of the stairs were three-foot-high walls, each shaped in the form of a vibrant, snake-like dragon, colored by green and orange titles.

They passed dozens of people on the way up, an equal mix of tourists and Thais. At the top was a building with a wide passageway that ran underneath it into an open-air courtyard.

“Is this it?” Logan asked, once they were in the courtyard. If it was, he was underwhelmed.

“No. Over there.”

Daeng pointed at another, considerably shorter, set of stairs, this one only about twenty steps. There were dozens of pairs of shoes sitting on and below it.

“You need a ticket first, though,” he said.

“You don’t need one?” Logan asked.

Daeng shook his head. “Only farang .”

Once Logan had his ticket, they left their shoes at the bottom of the staircase and proceeded up to the main part of the temple.

This was more like what he expected. It, too, was basically a courtyard, but there the similarities ended.

Everything here seemed to be covered in gold. There must have been a hundred Buddha statues in different sizes, standing and sitting and lying down. In addition, there were bells and elephants and latticework on the building, all of it in gold.

And then there was the stupa, or as Daeng called it, the chedi . This was the bell shaped tower that rose into the sky in the middle of the temple. Logan had seen them in the other temples they’d passed. While this one wasn’t the largest, it was definitely the most golden.

Daeng took him quickly around the grounds. It was basically a square. The stupa was in the middle, and had a narrow area directly surrounding it for devotees to circumnavigate in prayer. A few people were doing so, their hands clasped together in front of them and holding several sticks of burning incense. Outside this was a larger area that also went around the stupa. That’s where the majority of the people were, the tourists in the crowd snapping pictures of almost everything in sight. Between this pathway and the walls containing the grounds were several enclosed areas. Some were small shrines, while others housed larger displays of Buddhas. As they walked around, Logan noted several doors that appeared to lead out from the temple, but all of them seemed to be closed to tourists.

The problem was he had no idea what mattered here, and what didn’t.

For all he knew, Bell wasn’t planning on coming all the way up to the actual temple. Maybe the switch was going to happen in the area where Logan had bought his ticket. Or maybe down below before the steps, where the vendors were.

“We’re going to need help,” he told Daeng. “There’re just too many places to watch on our own. Do you think your friends from earlier can give us a hand again, and be our eyes.”

“I have a better idea, but I need to check first,” Daeng said. “Can you give me thirty minutes?”