Brett Battles - Little Girl Gone

Logan pulled a couple of one thousand baht bills out of his pocket, and Daeng exchanged them for two tickets and change.

“We’ve got to run,” Daeng said, glancing up at a station clock. It was almost ten after six. “The train leaves in two minutes.”

As they neared the glass doors, the man who’d been driving them around town rushed up, carrying Logan’s backpack.

“Thanks,” Logan said, grabbing it as they passed.

“Mai bpen rai,” the man said.

As they reached the platform, Logan asked Daeng, “You want to tell me where we’re going?”

“Chiang Mai.”

Though it had been a while since Logan had been in Thailand, he knew that Chiang Mai was in the northeastern part of the country, hundreds of miles from Bangkok.

“How long’s that going to take?” he asked.

“All night.”

31

Logan and Daeng made it on the train before it started to roll, but just barely. They were still looking for their seats when they felt a lurch as the engine began to pull them out of the station.

“There,” Daeng said, nodding toward two empty bench seats at the end of the cabin.

He took the one facing forward while Logan took the other.

“No first class tickets left,” he said. “You’ll have to put up with second.”

“What’s the difference?”

“First class gets their own cabins.”

Their car was set up like a series of table-less diner booths running down each side. The booths were open to the aisle in the center, but had walls separating the ones on the same side. Padded gray plastic cushions covered the seats, and were comfortable enough for the ride ahead. And while four people could easily fit in each booth, Logan noticed that there were never occupied by more than two.

A pair of elderly Thai women were sitting across from them, sharing some food and laughing while they talked. When one of the women saw Logan looking over, she held a piece of fruit toward him.

He smiled, but shook him head. “No, thanks.”

She held it there for a second longer, then shrugged and pulled it back.

“Mai, khrap,” Daeng said, looking at Logan. “Khob khun, khrap. It means, no, thank you.”

Logan tried it out a few times until Daeng said he had it close enough. The two ladies nodded encouragingly when he finally got it, one of them even clapping a couple of times.

“I didn’t see the others when we walked through,” Logan said in a low voice once the women had returned to their conversation.

“Neither did I,” Daeng said.

“We’re sure they didn’t get off before the train left?”

“My guy would have called us if they had. The real question is, are they going to where the girl is?”

That had been a worry running through Logan’s mind since the moment he’d realized the others were getting on a train. “I hope so.”

They sat there silently for a few moments.

“How many stops are we going to make?” Logan asked.

“Maybe a dozen. Don’t know for sure.”

That was more than Logan had hoped. The others could get off at any time during the night. “First thing we need to do is figure out where they are so we can keep tabs on them.”

“That should be easy enough,” Daeng said. “How many of them know what you look like?”

“None of the ones on the train, actually. The two who’ve seen me before aren’t here.”

“Still, maybe I should be the one who looks around,” Daeng said. “Your farang face will stick out, and could give us problems later if they spot you somewhere else. Me, I’m just another Thai.”

Logan didn’t completely buy the argument, but it made enough sense that he said, “Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

As Daeng headed out, Logan slouched down on his bench, antsy. For the last couple of hours his adrenaline had been running at full tilt while they’d followed Aaron through the city. Top that off with the rush to get on the train, and he was having a hard time getting into relax mode.

He looked out the window. They were still in Bangkok, rolling by areas he was pretty sure most tourists didn’t visit. At one point they seemed to pass through what looked like a little village built between the tracks and the city a hundred feet away. There were huts and stores all crammed together and built from scrap, and around them families ate and children played.

He heard the car door nearest him slide open, and sounds from outside momentarily rushed in before it closed again. Between the door and their booth was an area with a sink and a small room with a toilet. So it was a few seconds before the man who had come through the door appeared. He was wearing a uniform, and as soon as he reached Logan’s booth, he said something in Thai.

Logan hesitated a moment, then retrieved his ticket and held it out, assuming that’s what the man wanted. The guy’s smile told him he was right. As the conductor was marking Logan ticket, the train door opened again. Once more there was the delay, then a man squeezed around the back of the conductor. Logan caught a glimpse of his profile, and immediately turned to the window. It was the Caucasian guy who’d been with Aaron.

A hand touched Logan’s shoulder. He hesitated, then turned, bracing himself in case they’d somehow been able to ID him. But it was only the conductor trying to give him back his ticket.

“Sorry,” Logan said, taking it from him. “Thank you. Khob khun….khrap.”

“Khob khun, khrap,” the conductor said, then turned to the women in the opposite booth.

Cautiously, Logan leaned into the aisle and looked toward the far end of the car where the other man had been heading. The guy was just opening the door to move on to the next car. As he did, he nearly ran into Daeng. There was a moment of awkwardness as they moved around each other, then Daeng bowed his head a few inches, and the door shut between them.

“He came from the front of the train,” Logan said once Daeng had rejoined him.

“Yeah, I figured. I didn’t see any of them in the cars back there. It’s all second class like us, so I’m guessing they’re probably up in a first class cabin.”

“Where do you think he was going?”

Daeng shook his head. “Nothing back there but more cars like this. Probably just stretching his legs.”

As soon as Daeng had left to check the cars in front, Logan decided to make sure the man who’d walked through didn’t get a chance for another look at him when he came back.

He went over to the sink just opposite the door to the toilet, and hovered there, keeping an eye on the door at the other end of the car. Logan’s plan was to simply step into the room with the toilet the moment he saw him. Unfortunately, a few seconds before the man returned, one of Logan’s new Thai friends from across the aisle decided to use the facilities.

Now he was caught in a situation where if he returned to his seat he’d draw attention to himself, and if he stayed where he was, it would be easy for the man to take a good look at him. It could be it wouldn’t matter, but, if possible, he preferred to remain anonymous for the moment. So the best chance he had to do that was to head into the next car, and hope that the toilet there was unoccupied.

He slipped out the door into a short, noisy passageway, then opened another door and stepped into the next car. Immediately he could see that this one was different than the one in which he and Daeng were assigned. The walkway took a short jog to the left, and ran along the side of the train for a little bit before passing a kitchen area, then opening into a simple dining room.

Several of the tables were occupied, and two waitresses seemed to be sharing the duty of serving the customers. There was a snack counter, too, separating the kitchen from the dining area.

What he wasn’t seeing was a bathroom.

He quickly headed across the dining area to the door on the other side. Passing through it, he was once more in the no man’s land between cars, only this particular passage had been set up so that people could move to the sides, out of the way, and smoke next to open windows.

He knew the further he continued down the train, the more chances he was taking that he’d be spotted. So he decided this was going to have to do. He moved over to one of the windows, his back now to the train’s doors.

The sun had set in the last ten minutes, and the space was not well lit, so the shadows were also his friend as he leaned into the window to sell the illusion he was smoking, then waited. He expected the door behind him to open within half a minute, but it didn’t. In fact it was almost three before someone passed through, and it was a woman, not the guy he was hiding from.

He held his position, wondering where the hell the man gone. After another minute, the door opened again. Someone stepped through, then Logan heard something scrape against the second door a couple of times.

“Dammit,” a voice said.

Logan resisted the urge to turn.

“Hey, can you give me a hand?”

Logan still didn’t move.

“Buddy, you speak English? I could use some help.”

Logan turned, but tried to stay as much in the darkness as possible. Sure enough, it was the guy he’d been trying to avoid. “Sorry,” he said. “Daydreaming.”

“No problem. Can you open this door for me? My hands are kind of full. Got through the other one, but now I seem kind of stuck.”

He was holding several bottles of beer and some packages of food, which explained why he’d been delayed.

“Sure,” Logan said.

He squeezed by the man and opened the door.

“Thanks. Appreciate it.”

As the guy disappeared inside, Logan knew he probably should just turn around and head back to his seat, but an opportunity had just been presented to him that he couldn’t pass up.

Since a person could only go two directions on a train, if someone was walking down the aisle behind them, there’d be very little reason for them to think they were being followed.

Logan let the man have a good five second lead, then he entered the car.

This, too, was unlike the second class car. But it wasn’t another dining car. This one was first class. The aisle ran along the windows on the left, and on the right were white doors to the private cabins.

As the man neared each cabin door, Logan tense in anticipation, but the man made it all the way to the end without stopping. There he paused, then looked back and saw Logan.

“You coming this way too?” he called out.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Get the door for me again?”

“Of course.”

As they passed into the next cabin, the man said, “Thanks, man. I feel like I should tip you. Want a beer?”

“No, thanks. You keep them.” Logan paused. It was too late to worry about the guy remembering his face, so he added, “Unless you’re actually going to drink all of them yourself.”

The guy laughed. “Not that I couldn’t, but I’m sharing these.”

Suddenly they were friends, and Logan was no longer walking twenty feet behind him, but only three.

“At least those will help pass the time,” Logan said.

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

Logan almost asked how far the man was traveling. The question was on his lips, an innocent inquiry from a fellow passenger. But he hesitated, then decided it was one step too far.

They were halfway through the car when the door ahead of them opened, and Daeng came through. He nearly missed a step when he saw Logan walking toward him right behind Aaron’s friend. Logan could see that Daeng was trying to figure out if he needed to do something or not, so he raised a hand a few inches, indicating that everything was okay.

As they got nearer, Daeng moved against the window so they could pass. Once the man had gone by, Daeng gave Logan a look that very clearly asked what the hell was he doing? Unfortunately, there was no easy way for Logan to reply.

As before, Logan helped with the doors as they moved out of one car and into the next. This time, though, the man stopped three cabins down.

“Thanks, again,” he said, as he moved out of the way so Logan could keep going.

“No worries. Enjoy the beer.”

Walking slowly away, he heard the door slide open.

Someone inside said, “Took you long enough.”

The man’s reply was lost as the door closed again.

Quickly, Logan turned and headed back the way he’d come.

He found Daeng in their booth back in second class. As he sat down, Daeng raised an eyebrow and said, “I see they didn’t kill you.”

One side of Logan’s mouth moved up in a smirk. “So, tell me. Were you able to figure out which cabin they were in? Because I was.”

32

Every time the train stopped at a station, either Logan or Daeng would step out onto the platform, and keep an eye on the first class cars to make sure the others didn’t leave. At around nine, they grabbed something to eat in the restaurant car, and dined to the singing of a group of three Irish backpackers who’d had a few too many Chang Beers.

When they returned to their car, their booth was no longer a booth. The porter had transformed not only theirs, but all the other booths into upper and lower sleeping berths. Each was only wide enough for one person. That explained why there were only two people per booth. Some people had apparently already checked out for the night as baby blue curtains were pulled across the aisle side of several of the berths.

“You take the top one,” Daeng said.

“Since I paid for the tickets, you take the top one,” Logan told him. The lower berth had a wider bed.

“And here I thought I was doing you a favor. Maybe I should charge you for my services.”

Daeng got the lower.

Since the train would be making stops throughout the night, they agreed to split the time into two-hour shifts so that one of them would always be awake. Logan had first shift, and took a train-length walk every thirty minutes to keep his focus.

It was odd how quiet everything had become. With the exception of his new Irish friends, it seemed like the whole train was asleep. Even the porters and the people who’d been working in the now closed restaurant were nowhere to be found.

The three from Ireland—Barry, Brian, and Saoirse, pronounced Searsha—were camped out on one of the lower berths.

“Kicked out of the dining car when it closed,” Brian told Logan. “You can walk through, but you can’t sit there any longer. Who closes a dining car at ten?”

Every time Logan passed, they’d offer him a beer, and try to coax him into sitting so they could talk about the places they’d visited, and the ones they were still planning on seeing. The beer he passed on, but a couple of times he stayed for a few minutes to pass the time.

The only cars he avoided were the front two first class ones, in the closest of which was Aaron and the others’ cabin. No sense in pressing his luck.