Little Girl Gone

25



Logan was out in front of the Angel City Hotel seven minutes later. His mind was still cloudy with sleep, but moving around was helping a little.

He scanned the road in both directions. The number of people on the sidewalks had thinned, and many of the vendors had left. Off to the right, he saw a pair of headlights turn onto the street. He edged closer to the curb, anticipating that it was his ride. As it neared, he could see it was a taxi, but it raced past the hotel without the driver even glancing in his direction.

In the distance he heard thunder, and looked to the sky. It was cloudy, but at the moment there was no rain. He wondered if he should go inside, and see if they had a spare umbrella at the reception desk, but just then a motorcycle taxi like one of the hundreds he’d noticed on the drive from the airport, pulled to the curb. Like most of the other drivers he’d seen, this one was a younger man wearing an orange vest.

“Harper?” the driver said, catching Logan off guard.

“Yes.”

The kid nodded at the empty space on the seat behind him. It certainly wasn’t the ride Logan had been expecting, but if that’s what the mysterious voice had sent for him, so be it.

He climbed on, then grabbed each side of the seat to maintain his balance as they took off, helmetless, down the street.

The way his driver weaved through traffic, Logan half wondered if the kid had a death wish or something. He lost count of how many times they came close to hitting or being hit by another vehicle, but, scientifically, he would categorize it as a lot.

The wild ride went on for nearly twenty minutes before they finally stopped at the side of the road. The street they were on was wide but quiet, making Logan think that Bangkok was finally starting to wind down. The buildings that lined either side were packed right up against each other. Most of the lower floors were occupied by businesses, none of which seemed to be open during the middle of the night. The upper floors—most of the buildings were at least five stories high—looked more like apartments. A few had lights on, but the majority were dark.

The driver pointed at a door directly across the sidewalk. There were no markings on it or nearby to indicate what might be inside.

The moment Logan hopped off the bike, the driver drove off, leaving him standing alone on the sidewalk. He walked up to the door not knowing if he should knock or just go in. He decided to just open it. If it turned out he should have knocked, he could apologize after.

Instead of leading into a room, though, the door opened onto an empty staircase that went up one level and ended at another closed door. The incline was steep and the treads were narrow, so he watched his step as he made his way to the top.

He tried opening this one, too, but it was locked, so he was forced to knock.

There was a delay of several seconds, then the door opened into a small, dimly lit room. As soon as he stepped inside, the door closed behind him. He looked back. A short, thin Asian man wearing a crooked smile stood facing him.

“Please,” the man said, his voice strained like his throat had been injured. He pointed at the opposite side of the room.

Logan turned back around, and realized the wall the man was motioning to was actually just a dark drape.

“Please,” he repeated.

Logan walked over and pulled the drape back. Beyond was a large, loft-style room. It was considerably brighter than the entry room had been, mainly due to dozens of candles scattered throughout the space. The room had that over-the-top decorated feel: orange end tables, fur-covered cubes, a sculpture made of old computer parts, bar stools in hot pink, and paintings on the walls that were the definition of abstract.

There were ten people, too. Men mainly, but also a few women, and all Asian. They’d all been talking when Logan first stepped in, but quickly stopped and were now staring at him.

“Please,” the thin man said behind him, urging Logan on.

Once they crossed the room, the man showed Logan to a chair near where the others were sitting.

“Mr. Harper,” he said, introducing Logan.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Sawadee, ka.”

“Welcome.”

Logan nodded and smiled grimly in return, but kept his mouth shut, waiting for the person who’d called him to identify herself. But no one spoke up.

For nearly two minutes, they all sat in silence. Then Logan heard a faint noise behind him, followed by the sound of footsteps on the tiled floor. Before he could turn to look, the same voice he’d heard on the phone called out, “You must be Mr. Harper.”

Entering the room through a doorway in the far corner were two men and a woman. One of the men was wearing a gray suit, white shirt, and dark tie. The other was in a pair of jeans, black button shirt, and cowboy boots. Where the first had short hair and was clean-shaven, the second had hair that fell almost to his shoulders and was sporting a goatee. The suited guy reminded Logan of an accountant, while the other one he would have pegged as a musician straight in from a club.

But the woman was even more surprising, and it had nothing to do with her impressive height or striking blonde hair, or the electric blue dress she wore. Unlike everyone else present except for Logan, she was Caucasian.

Logan stood as she swept across the room.

“You look exactly like your picture,” she said. “A few years older, perhaps. But you’ve aged well.”

He was suddenly wary. “What picture?”

She looked at one of the men sitting nearby, then rattled off something in what Logan assumed was Thai.

The man immediately grabbed a piece of paper off an orange end table, and handed it to her. She examined it for a moment, then turned it so Logan could see. “This one.”

He tensed. The picture was his Forbus employee photo. In this case, it was part of the newspaper article that had raised questions about his conduct in Carl’s death, and other matters concerning Forbus. Two days after the article had come out, his status had switched from suspended with pay to terminated.

“Where did you get that?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

She gave him a pitiful, are-you-serious look. “The Internet, of course. Oh, don’t worry. I don’t care if you were guilty or not. I just wanted to have a way to identify you when you arrived.”

“I wasn’t guilty.”

“I said I don’t care. Dev Martin vouched for you, and that’s all that matters to me.”

“You talked to Dev?”

“Of course, this morning. He gave me the details about why you’re here. Thought it might assist me in figuring out what kind of help I could provide.”

“This morning? You mean before the jet arrived?”

“The private plane? Yes…” she said, drawing the last word out.

“Were you able to follow them from the airport? Do you know where they are?”

She smiled. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“Please. We don’t have time to waste.”

“We do have time to sit.”

One of the people who had been sitting on a fur cube near Logan moved so that the woman could take it. Reluctantly, Logan sat back down, too.

“All right. We’re sitting,” he said.

“First, no one asked us to go to the airport to follow them,” she told him.

He felt the sinking sensation of lost opportunity.

“Second, even if they had, there wouldn’t have been enough time to get there before they were gone.”

This revelation didn’t help much. If he’d been thinking correctly before he left Los Angeles, he would have had Dev call her right away. As it was, Logan hadn’t even asked him to call at all. Doing so had apparently been Dev’s own idea. Logan owed that man a beer or three when he got back.

“So there’s no way to know where they went,” he said, feeling like he was back at square one again.

“I didn’t say that.”

He looked at her. “Are you saying you do know?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

He could feel frustration bubbling just below his skin, but he took a breath and reined it in. He couldn’t afford to lose focus now. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“That’s true,” she said. She was silent for a moment, then laughed. “You can call me Christina. They all do.” She swept her hand out, taking in the others.

“Can I ask where you’re from?” Logan said. Her accent was a mix—a little American with a hint of British, and a few pronunciations that sounded almost Australian.

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head, but giving no further explanation. “Now, about those who arrived on this jet. I may not know where they went, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find out.”

“Please,” Logan said. “That would be a huge help.” He took the silence that followed for hesitation, so added, “I don’t have unlimited resources, but I can pay you if that would make a difference.”

Her mouth twisted in an ugly sneer. “I wouldn’t do this for money.” She looked past him at the others. “Everyone out.”

Without a word, they all rose and started for the door. Everyone, that was, except the two men who’d come in the room with her.

Once the four of them were alone, Christina said, “Any help I give you is because of an old friend I owe a debt to that I can never repay. He’s the one who gave Dev my number. He’s the one who asked me to help you if I felt I could.”

“Please, thank him for me when you speak to him again.”

She gazed at Logan, then said with a nod, “I’ll do that.” She paused. “I haven’t been entirely inactive since I talked to Dev this morning.” She motioned at the nervous-looking, suited man behind her. “Mr. Prem has…contacts in the government. More specifically within Immigration and Customs.” She looked back. “Mr. Prem? Can you tell our new friend what you reported to me earlier?”

Mr. Prem cleared his throat as he stepped forward. When he spoke his accent was thick, but understandable. “Van waiting at private hanger when plane arrive. Seven men get off plane. All farang.”

Christina held up a hand, stopping him, then looked at Logan. “Are you familiar with this term? Farang?”

He shook his head.

“It’s the word Thais use for foreigner,” she explained, then she nodded at Mr. Prem to continue.

“Six men white. One man black.”

If you didn’t count the flight crew, or any other airline employee than might have been onboard, that worked out to the same seven men Logan had seen get on. “Was there a girl?”

Mr. Prem hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. One girl. Asian. Young woman. One man carry her out in arms, like she asleep.”

Unless the girl was a decoy for some reason, Elyse was here.

“At twelve twenty-three, van leave airport.” He took a step back, indicating he was finished.

Logan wasn’t, though. “What about Immigration? They just let them through with an unconscious girl?”

Mr. Prem looked nervously at Christina. She gave him a nod, so he stepped forward again. “Girl have Thai passport. Men with her say she got ill on plane.”

“And the officials believed that?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Christina asked. “There was nothing suspicious. There are plenty of rich businessmen in Thailand who hire farang to keep tabs on their children traveling aboard. One of them arrives home sick? It’s probably something Immigration sees at least once a month. And you need to remember, Mr. Harper, this is Thailand, not the States. Government officials are keenly aware of where the money is in this country, and the only attention they want to bring to themselves is that they’ve been very helpful.”

“What about tracking down the van?” Logan asked. “Is that something you can do?”

She didn’t answer, but instead looked like she was contemplating how she wanted to respond.

Finally, Logan shook his head and said, “I don’t understand why you seem reluctant to help me.”

“I want to help you. I’m just not sure whether I should or not.”

“Why is that even a question? Dev must have made it clear what was going on. The girl they have, she’s being used as a pawn by the Burmese government to keep her mother from speaking out against them. She’s just a kid. A college student. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Do you have actual proof that the Myanmar government’s responsible for taking her?” she asked.

The expression on the face of the man in the black shirt soured for a moment, then returned to neutral.

“I don’t,” Logan admitted. “But her grandfather is convinced that’s what’s happened, and the fact that she was brought here, within a hundred miles of the border, is enough to convince me he’s probably right. What’s going to happen to her if they take her over there?”

Again, he sensed something in the longer haired man. A tension. But if Christina noticed, she made no mention of it.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I’m not a fan of the generals. They’re oppressors and killers, we all know that. But things are delicate over here. A wrong move could affect many other things that are also important.”

Logan stood up. “I’ve obviously come to the wrong place. Thank you for your time.”

He turned for the door, but Christina reached out and touched his hand. “Mr. Harper, please. Sit back down.”

He hesitated for a moment, then did as she asked.

She leaned toward him. “I’ve been lucky to have had a certain amount of success here. But to do that, I’ve had to create a reliable information network that stretches beyond the borders of Thailand. I have people in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, and Myanmar…Burma. I have been told there is no chance the generals in Myanmar, no matter how crazy they are, would have sent people to the United States to kidnap anyone.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Logan told her, shaking his head. “I don’t have the proof, but, honestly, I don’t care if it’s them or not. I just want to get the girl back. I promised her grandfather, and I’m not going to let him down. So, please, I’m asking you for your help.”

He locked eyes with her, daring her to tell him no.

After several seconds, she frowned, and stood up. “The truth is, Mr. Harper, I can’t help you.”

His shoulders sagged. He was about to ask her why she bothered bringing him here, when she motioned to the man in the black shirt.

“But I think my friend Daeng here can.”