Little Girl Gone - By Battles, Brett Page 0,63
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?”
“The picture’s from the New York Times. It’s the outside of the Federal Courthouse in New York City. The two older gentlemen are Samuel Schwartz and Charles Bracher. The two others with them aren’t important. I want you to look at the three in the back, specifically the guy on the right. You should be able to enlarge it enough.”
He centered the person in question, and increased the size of the photo, then stared at it for a moment. “That’s him.”
“Robert Andrews?”
“Yes. I’m sure of it.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Who is he?”
Silence, then, “His real name is Scott Bell.”
“He works for Bracher Schwartz?”
“Technically, he runs his own security firm. Of course, it is located in the same building as Bracher Schwartz’s home office.” She was quiet for a moment. “I went out on a limb, Logan. I talked to one of our people in New York. He says Bell handles all the firm’s dirty work.”
“Ruth, you didn’t have to take that chance.”
“It doesn’t matter.