Daeng reached for the knob, but then paused, and looked at Logan. “If someone sees me after I open this, I’ll pull it shut and hold it while you get out, okay?”
Reluctantly, Logan nodded.
Daeng opened the door a crack. Immediately, they could both hear voices, but none distinct enough to make out what was being said.
He eased it open wider, then stuck his head through the gap. Suddenly, he pulled back and closed the door. The only thing that kept Logan from heading for the exit was that Daeng hadn’t slammed it.
“What?” Logan whispered.
“We need to leave.”
“Did someone see you?”
Daeng shook his head. “No.”
“Then what?”
Daeng hesitated, then said, “She’s there, but there’s no way we can get to her.”
“Let me take a look.” Logan tried to get by him, but Daeng pushed him back.
“She’s tied in a chair, either unconscious or drugged. Maybe both.” He paused. “There’s blood on her shirt, too.”
“Are you sure she’s alive?”
“I think so,” Daeng said. He held Logan’s gaze for a moment. “Logan, you were wrong.”
“About what?”
“This Mr. Bell isn’t just working with the men who came with him. There are at least half a dozen others in there. All
Logan couldn’t believe it. Elyse was right beyond that door. If there had only been the two men he’d expected, he and Daeng would have had an excellent chance at getting her out. But the two of them against eight? The only chance now would be one of total failure. “I need to see.”
Daeng hesitated a moment, then said, “There’s an enclosed area just beyond the door. If you don’t open it too wide, they shouldn’t notice.”
They switched places, then Logan slowly opened the door.
Beyond the enclosed space was a large room similar to the one upstairs, except this one had several tables and some chairs spread around. He spotted Elyse right away. Her chair was just within his line of sight, toward the center of the room. She was angled so that he could see mostly a front view of her. There was indeed blood on her shirt. Not as much as he feared, but more than he would have liked.
He stared at her until he saw her chest move up and down, glad for the confirmation that she was alive. It did nothing for his overall feeling of frustration, though.
He turned his attention to the rest of the room. Sitting just behind Elyse were two men he’d never seen before, and clear across the room near the corner were several others. Perhaps Bell had gotten scared when Ryan had disappeared, or when he was unable to contact Williams and Dean back in the States. Or perhaps he’d always planned on having extra help for the scheduled hand off.
Logan pulled back into the hallway, and silently closed the door.
It didn’t really matter what the reason was for the increase in manpower. It meant only one thing.
Logan’s job had just become considerably more complicated.
38
Logan and Daeng were back at the roadside restaurant. Across the street, everything at the compound had returned to normal, their diversionary group of Burmese refugees having walked off as soon as Daeng had given them the signal.
They had to assume that was when Elyse was going to be turned over to someone else. Once she was in the others’ hands, Logan’s chances of getting her back dropped to near zero. So three and a half hours was all the time he had to free her.
Without a platoon of commandos, getting her out of the compound wasn’t an option. And while Daeng had proven resourceful in obtaining help, access to elite soldiers was a little beyond his reach. So that left two options: grab her while she was being transported to the handoff point, or do it at the handoff point itself. While Logan didn’t want it to come down to the last minute, he felt there were too many ways she could get injured or even killed if they made the attempt while she was riding in a car.
Like it or not, the hand off point was the most logical place to make their move. Or would have been if Logan had actually known where it was.
As he tossed around a few generic plans with Daeng, something in the back of his mind tugged at him, demanding attention.
He looked out at the road again, focusing on nothing as he attempt to let whatever was hovering back there come forward.
Slowly, he started to remember. It was something he’d heard. While he was…in the building across the street. When…
