Little Girl Gone

The man was smiling and definitely looking confident. Logan locked eyes with Daeng, and gave him a second nod.

“It would be great if you can make it. I love Barry, and Brian’s a lot of fun, but we’ve been traveling together for about a month now, and sometimes it’s nice to talk—”

“I’m sorry. You’ll have to excuse me.”

He didn’t wait for a reply.

41

Logan tried to make it look like he was just another tourist taking in all the sights as he walked casually toward Elyse and Bell. But as he took another step, a hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder from behind.

“Hey. I think you need to apologize.”

It was Barry, and he didn’t look happy.

Why, Logan had no idea, but he didn’t have time to care. “Sure. Sorry.” He glanced back at Bell.

The guy was now holding a phone to his ear, but was leaning down and saying something to the secret policeman.

Barry suddenly moved in front of Logan. “Really? That’s pretty damn rude, don’t you think?”

Logan took a breath. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sorry, okay? I’ve gotta go.”

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to. It’s Saoirse.” Barry looked past Logan’s shoulder.

Logan followed his gaze, and could see Barry’s girlfriend standing pretty much where Logan had left her. He wasn’t sure if she was feeling hurt, or just embarrassed that her boyfriend was making a scene. But he couldn’t care. “I apologize,” he said to her. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just in a hurry.” He turned back around, but Barry was still standing there. “You need to get out of my way.”

He could see something was happening ahead. Bell, with Elyse still under his arm, and the Myanmar man next to him were heading toward the exit, Bell’s men loosely surrounding them.

As Logan started to weave around Barry, the Irishman reached out and grabbed Logan’s arm. “Who the hell do you think—”

Before he could finish Logan grabbed his arm, then swept his feet out from under him, and lowered the Irishman quickly to the ground. The anger that had been in Barry’s face disappeared. There was nothing but surprise in his eyes.

“I said I’m sorry,” Logan told him.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.”

When he looked back up, the others were more than halfway to the exit. They were going to get away if he didn’t move fast. He started dodging through the crowd, trying to convince himself he hadn’t missed his chance.

Then everything turned chaotic.

Monks started appearing through doorways, up through the main entrance, and seemingly even materializing out of the crowd.

This was Daeng’s doing, the extra help he had enlisted. Only the plan had been that the sudden influx of monks would confuse Bell, and create movement problems for his men, allowing Logan to grab Elyse.

But Logan was nowhere near Elyse. And while the tactic was definitely slowing the others’ escape, the flash mob created by the monks was also blocking Logan from getting closer to Tooney’s granddaughter.

He continued to push his way into the crowd, trying to squeeze through any seam that he could find.

“We have a problem.”

Logan looked over. Daeng had somehow caught up with him.

“Yeah. I noticed,” Logan said as he kept shoving his way forward.

“It’s the mother,” Daeng told him. “The monks tried to detain her, but she wouldn’t stay. Then some of your farang friends grabbed her as she was about to start up the stairs.”

Bell’s other men, Logan thought. The ones that were missing.

Daeng must have read Logan’s silence as displeasure, because he said, “The monks did all they could, but they weren’t going to hold her by force.”

“I know,” Logan told him. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay, but it wasn’t their fault, either. He should have given Daeng the signal as soon as Bell had stepped onto the temple grounds. They would have had Elyse by now, and they could have communicated that down to the monks who’d been with Sein. But he’d wanted to make sure he had accounted for everyone, and had gotten in as close as he could first.

Once more his delayed action had caused a mistake.

Get the girl. Carl’s voice whispered in his mind.

As they got closer to the exit, Logan could see that some of Bell’s men had been forced off to the side, and were being surrounded by monks. One of them stared at Logan across the crowd. It was the guy who had the beers on the train. Logan could see the light blub go on as he suddenly realized Logan must have something to do with all this.