Brett Battles - Little Girl Gone

His lungs weren’t burning yet, but he was quite a ways under the vines, so he needed to make sure he saved enough time to swim back to open water. He decided to allow himself fifteen more seconds, then reached out again to see if Ryan was still nearby.

Once more he found one of a leg, but instead of kicking him off again, Ryan let him grab hold this time, then pulled his leg up in a tuck, bringing Logan to him. Logan was about to let go, worried that Ryan was just drawing him in so he could kick him in the head, but then Ryan grabbed desperately at his wrist, and seemed to be urging Logan to pull him.

Logan did, but was only able to move him a foot before Ryan stopped with a jerk. He tried again, but the result was the same.

Heat slowly began building at the bottom of Logan’s lungs. Ignoring it, he swum in closer, and felt along Ryan’s torso and up to his shoulders. That’s when he discovered what was wrong.

Ryan’s arm was entangled in the vines.

Logan ran his hands rapidly across them, attempting to find a way to free him.

Suddenly Ryan began thrashing. Logan began working faster, pulling at the vines, and ripping them from underneath.

Ryan jerked. Once. Twice. Then he stopped moving completely.

Logan kept at it even as his lungs began screaming to stop what he was doing and get to the surface.

He yanked on a clump of vines, then suddenly Ryan’s arm fell free.

Quickly he grabbed Ryan around the shoulders, then swam out from under the vegetation, and up to the river’s surface. As soon as his head broke through the water, he sucked in as much air as he could.

“Daeng!” he yelled. “Over here.”

He couldn’t see the boat, but he knew it had to be nearby.

“Daeng!”

He propped Ryan’s head on his shoulder, painfully aware he wasn’t breathing. Not far away he heard the longboat’s motor kick in. As soon as Daeng pulled beside him, they got Ryan onto the boat, then Logan flopped in after him.

Logan had learned CPR in the Army, and had unfortunately been in the position to have utilized it more than once. Starting in on Ryan, he was hopeful because of the kid’s age and physical condition that he could bring him back. But after nearly ten minutes, he realized it was no use.

Ryan was dead.

Daeng waited a few seconds, then said, “Let’s put him back in the water.”

“The water? Why?” Logan asked.

“You’re after the girl, not him. If someone sees you with the body and the police find out, they’re going to ask questions. You’ll be detained. Can you afford that?”

No , Logan thought. It was just like with Anthony. He would have to let someone else deal with it.

Carefully, they rolled the body over the side, and dumped Ryan into the Chao Phraya. Logan heard Daeng whispering under his breath, then realized that he was praying. He thought maybe he should do the same, too, but no prayer came to mind.

When he looked at the river again, Ryan was gone.

29

Though Logan and Daeng had narrowed down the part of the riverfront where Elyse was most likely being held, they still had no idea of her exact location. They decided their best bet was to encircle the area with watchers—two crews in longboats “fishing” on the river, and ten other men scattered in an arc on the landside. Daeng thought he could drum up maybe four to six additional men that could roam the area, and try to pick up leads from the people who lived in the neighborhood.

As much as Logan didn’t want to, the thing he needed to do was get a few hours of sleep. Daeng promised to call the instant anything happened, then dropped him off in front of his hotel.

Though it was the phone that woke Logan four hours later, it wasn’t Daeng on the other end. It was Ruth.

“Where exactly are you?”

“Huh?” Logan said, still half-asleep. “What are you talking about?”

“You left the country, didn’t you?”

“Is that a problem?” Before she could reply, he said, “Wait. Just give me a second.” He pulled himself out of bed, and carried the phone into the bathroom where he splashed some water on his face. Once he felt his brain starting to work again, he put the phone back to his ear. “What’s going on, Ruth?”

“I had an…unexpected conversation this afternoon.” It was still Friday evening in New York.

“Unexpected?”

“Forty-five minutes ago, Jon Jordan came into my office.” Jordan was the C.O.O of Forbus Systems International. He was the prick who’d been behind turning Logan into a scapegoat, though Logan could never prove that. “He wants to know why I was interested in Bracher Schwartz and Associates.”

Logan tried to place the name, but it was unfamiliar. “Who are they?”

“Bracher Schwartz is a New York law firm. The same firm that was involved with setting up the shell companies that included Kajiwara Research. Remember them? Your friends who chartered that jet?”

She had his attention now. “This law firm, they’re real? Not a shell?”

“Very real, and, apparently, very well connected. One of the senior partners plays golf with Mr. Jordan.”

“Well, that’s…interesting. Do you think the shell companies lead back to Forbus?”

“If they did, I certainly wouldn’t be calling you,” she said. “But I did touch a nerve, that’s for sure. Mr. Jordan was also curious why I was looking at our Burma files.”

“You have a problem, Ruth. Someone’s spying on you.”

She huffed out a derisive breath. “They spy on all of us here. That’s the nature of our business, remember?”

“Tell me more about this Bracher Schwartz place.”

“Harper, I’m calling you to tell you I can’t help you any more.”

He paused. “Look, I know I’ve put you in a bad spot, but I didn’t mean to do that. Ruth…a young woman’s life is in danger.”

“What are you talking about?”

He hesitated again, then said, “She’s…been abducted.”

“Abducted?”

“Yes.”

“What about the authorities?”

“If they get involve, this girl won’t see twenty-one.”

“Are you just feeding me a line?”

“No. I’m not. You know I’d never do that.”

“Dammit.” She took a few seconds, then said, “Okay, here’s the deal. This law firm handles a lot of international business. They have offices not just in New York, but in D.C., London, Geneva, and Singapore. They’re deal makers.”

“Do they do any business with the Burmese government?”

“Given your earlier request, I actually thought about that. But as far as I can tell, nothing. Burma’s kind of a touchy area. It’s actually illegal for U.S. firms to do business there. Well, technically, the Executive Order states that companies are not allowed to do business with the top people in the government or their families, but if you want to do business there, that’s who you have to deal with.”

Logan knew that didn’t mean there weren’t ways to work around it. “Did you happen to check if they actually had a Robert Andrews on staff?”

“I did, and they don’t. But…”

“But what?”

A pause, then “Hold on, I’m going to text you a photo.” He could hear her moving her phone around for several seconds. “There, sent. You should get it in a moment.”

“What’s the picture of?” he asked.

“I just want you to look at it first. It might be nothing.”

Before he could ask anything more, his phone buzzed. He accessed the text, then touched the photo so it would fill his display. It was a group shot—two older men in front, a couple of younger guys to the side, and three others in the background. They were on some steps leading down from a building.

He switched the phone to speaker so he could talk and view the picture at the same time. “Okay. So, what am I looking at?”