Brett Battles - Little Girl Gone

“Help?”

“I hope so.”

“Sure. Do it.”

“I’ll meet you at the bottom of the steps when I’m done. Near the food vendor selling the fried rice cakes.”

With that Daeng was gone.

Logan spent fifteen more minutes familiarizing himself with the layout, and fixing the locations of every potential exit in his mind. As he walked back down the long stairway, he couldn’t help but think that this was an odd place for a foreigner to choose. If he were Bell, he would have wanted a quiet place on some empty side street to exchange daughter for mother, not a crowded temple at the top of a mountain. Though there were several Western tourists around, if something happened, Bell and his men would stand out.

Unless…

…unless Bell wasn’t the one who picked the location.

Logan stopped halfway down, his hand resting on the dragon’s back.

What if this wasn’t just where Bell was going to exchange Elyse for Sein? What if this was also the place he was suppose to deliver Sein to the ultimate interested party—which, Logan was confident, had to be a representative of the Myanmar generals?

It was brilliant. This way Bell not only avoided detaining a known public figure in Sein, he also bypassed the even trickier proposition of having to transport her internationally. Instead, he had made her come to Chiang Mai on her own. All he had to do was grab her considerably lower-profile daughter. It was much easier to make sure Elyse’s disappearance wouldn’t be noticed for days. If Logan hadn’t walked into the back of the Coffee Time when he had, that’s exactly what would have happened. Tooney would have been dead, and no one would have known a thing. Still, as Sein had pointed out, even with that foul up, Bell had managed to get both of the Myat women to Chiang Mai.

And as far as choosing the temple?

Chiang Mai was only a fifty mile helicopter flight from the Burmese border. And the temple itself would provide the cover of camouflage and confusion. If trouble occurred, the Myanmar contingent could easily blend in with the crowd, and disappear with their prize, not caring at all what happened to their Western counterparts.

There was no way to know for sure if Logan was right, but he felt like he was. And it certainly fit with everything else he now knew.

He finished the steps, then found a spot near the rice cake vendor to wait.

When Daeng showed up, the first thing Logan did was tell him his theory. Daeng was nodding by the time he was done.

“That fits with something I heard,” Daeng said.

“What?”

“There were some men here yesterday and again this morning. They spoke Thai fluently, but their accents were a little off. They claimed to be from the government in Bangkok, and were given a full tour of the wat .”

“Why would they be given a tour if they weren’t who they said they were?”

“The wat is a Buddhist Temple. It’s the people’s place. Even if they weren’t from the government there was no reason not to show them around.”

“So you think these men were from the generals?”

“Probably secret police,” Daeng said, nodding. “They’re the only ones the generals would trust to send out of the country.” He paused. “I was told they were particularly interested in the different ways to get into and out of the central temple grounds.”

Of course they were . “Were you able to arrange for any help?”

“I was.”

“Enough?”

“More than.”

“Really? Who are they?”

When Daeng told him, the first thing Logan said was, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The second was, “I know what we’re going to do.”

40

Given the interest the men from Myanmar had shown in the actual temple grounds, Logan decided that it was probably the most likely spot for the hand off to occur. So the plan was for both he and Daeng to be in the wat prior to 3:30, in case things started early.

Some of Daeng’s arranged help would be around, too, while a few others would be at the bottom of the steps with instructions to both tell Daeng when Bell and his team arrived, and to delay Sein as soon as they spotted her.

Right after Logan and Daeng worked all this out, they sent Daeng’s driver into town to purchase several cheap digital video cameras. He got back just after 3:00 p.m., and they passed the cameras out to several of Daeng’s contacts both at the top and at the bottom, keeping one camera each for themselves. The idea was that if they could videotape as much of the—hopefully failed—hand over as possible, it would be damning evidence that could be released later.

As a final precaution, Logan had asked Daeng to contact the Burmese refugees they used at the compound, and have them waiting in a couple of cars at the bottom of the hill.

Having done everything they could to prepare, he and Daeng headed back up the steps, then staggered their return into the temple so that they didn’t arrive together.

Logan felt anxious. He knew they’d done all that they could, but he couldn’t help worrying that it wasn’t enough. Consumed with these thoughts, he barely heard a voice behind him say, “Hey, it’s the train walker.”

“It is, isn’t it?” a second voice said, this one belonging to a girl. Like the guy, her accent was Irish. “Hey, train walker. Enjoying Chiang Mai, are you?”

Logan forced on a smile and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, standing off to the side were Barry and Saoirse, two thirds of the Irish backpacking trio he’d hung out with on the train the night before.

“Having a good time so far,” he said. “How about you guys?”

“Yeah, great,” Barry said. “This is our fourth temple already.”

“But the best,” Saoirse added. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

“Definitely. Where’s your other friend?” Logan asked.

“Who? Brian?” Barry said. “He saw all those steps and decided to stay at the bottom and get something to eat.”

“Can’t believe he’s missing out on this,” the girl said.

Logan made a face like he couldn’t believe it either, then said, “You know, there is a tram hidden around the side, too, for those who don’t want to do the stairs.”

Barry laughed. “Yeah, we didn’t tell him about that. Thought the exercise would do him good. But when he saw the stairs, he said, ‘No way.’ His loss.”

“Definitely is.” Logan smiled again. “Well, my friend’s in here somewhere, so…”

“Sure. Of course,” Barry said. “Have a good time. Maybe we’ll see you around town.”

Logan gave them a wave, then headed toward the stupa.

There were a lot more people there now than when they’d done their earlier walk through. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad. It would certainly be easier to lose people this way, but he also thought it might make the others think twice before resorting to deadly force.

He spotted Daeng standing next to an altar in the wide aisle. Nearby a smiling monk chatted away with an elderly Asian couple. Daeng had a Bluetooth receiver tucked in his ear, but didn’t appear to be talking to anyone at the moment, so Logan moved in next to him.

“Anything?” he whispered.

“The murderers from the secret police are here already. Six total. Two in white shirts and khaki pants off to my left. Three on the far side, one in a tropical shirt, one in a brown, and one in a blue. You passed the last guy when you walked in. Wearing a brown T-shirt. He was interested in you until you talked to your friends over there.”

“Anyone else?”

“No sign of Daw Myat, and no sign of Bell and Elyse. But if we’re going by the time Taw told us, we still have more than ten minutes.”

“Those stairs will take them that long, so they’ll take the tram for sure.”

Logan made a quick circuit of the stupa to get a look at the generals’ team. The common terms he would have used to describe them were focused and tough. He guessed it would have been a little too much to expect them to be disinterested and out of shape.

A group of monks in bright saffron robes entered through a back door, then walked over to one of the roof-covered shrines. As they passed Logan, he bowed like the other people around him were doing. Once the monks moved on, he worked his way back around to where he started.

That’s when Daeng caught his eye, then scratched his temple with two fingers—their sign that Elyse and her kidnappers were on their way up.

That left only Sein, but it made sense that she’d be last. Bell definitely wouldn’t want her to show up before he did. Too much of a chance the generals’ men would grab her and leave. That, no doubt, would negate the contract.

As expected, Bell and his team took the tram to the top. The second Logan saw Elyse he could tell she was still drugged. She was leaning heavily against Bell, her eyes barely open. He, in turn, had his arm around her, propping her up.

They were loosely surrounded by six of Bell’s men. Two were the men Logan had seen on the train, and one was the jerk who chased him and Angie on the L.A. freeways. But the guy who tried to kill Tooney wasn’t there, and there were at least three others missing.

Waiting at the bottom? Logan wondered. Or were they already up here and he hadn’t seen them?

He stepped over to Daeng and told him about the missing men. Daeng nodded, then quickly moved away to a less-crowded area, and touched the Bluetooth device in his ear.

Logan looked back at Bell and Elyse. They were walking toward the stupa with the man from Myanmar in the brown T-shirt following not far behind them.

Near Logan was a row of beautiful Buddha statues, each with a pot of sand in front for sticking incense sticks into. He kept his eyes focused on these as he worked his way from one to the other, trying to get as close as he could to Elyse without attracting attention.

Drawing nearer, he heard a heavily accented voice say, “Good afternoon, Mr. Andrews.”

“How are you, sir?” Bell’s voice, the same voice that had been giving orders back in the building outside of town.

“This is not what was agreed to.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be just a couple more minutes.”

“Then who is this?”

“No one important,” Bell said. “I have the signed contract. One copy I’m afraid.”

“There was supposed to be two.”

“And you will get the second. But you have a signed one. So that should be everything.”

“Except the payment.”

“Which will happen momentarily.”

Logan glanced over at Daeng, and gave him a single nod. It was time to make their move.

“You know what the problem is, it’s all so beautiful you begin taking it for granted, and start saying ‘just another Buddha statue.’” Saoirse had walked up beside him. She smiled. “Find your friend?”

“He’s on the other side,” Logan said quickly.

“Ah, good.”

He tried to listen to what was going on behind him, but Saoirse’s voice drowned it out.

“Me and the boys found a great pub down by the wall in town. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? The wall. The guidebook says it used to go all the way around the old part of the city. Anyway, thought maybe you and your friend might want to join us for a drink this evening. They’ve got some pool tables. Might get in a few games. What do you say?”

“Uh, maybe. Why not?”

He saw movement out the corner of his eye, and turned. Daeng was looking directly at him, waving an arm. Once he saw he had Logan’s attention, he held up one finger, then collapsed it into his fist so that none were showing.