Little Girl Gone

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.”

“Do I need to point out again that it’s guarded?”

“I know. But so far they’ve shown a lack of interest in using local help. If they’ve only got the people they came with, then they’ll be spread pretty thin guarding that place.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Again, true.” Logan paused for a second. “At the very least, we know that they have someone up front.” He put a napkin in the middle of the table. “This is the walled in property. And this is us.” He set a soupspoon in their approximate position relative to the napkin. Using his finger, he traced a route across the tabletop. “If I’m careful, I should be able to work my way around and come at them from here.” He tapped the back corner of the napkin. “To your point about not knowing for sure, I’ll have staged goals. One, assess their security. And two, depending on the results of number one, enter the property, and see what I can find out. What I need you to do is create a diversion up front.” He put another spoon where the front gate would be. “Doable?”

“In my sleep,” Daeng said, but then frowned. “But I’m not completely comfortable with this, though.”

Logan sat back. “All right. What do you suggest?”

“That I come with you.”

“What about the diversion?”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll be handled.”