“No,” he said. “We’ll let them finish what they’re doing, then follow them. In the meantime, get me as close as you can. I want to see exactly who was left behind.”
30
Logan and Daeng spent five and a half hours in an empty apartment across an intersection from the building Elyse had been held in.
More than once, Logan asked if it was possible that the men who were supposedly still there might have snuck out some other way. Each time, Daeng had dutifully checked, but the report would always come back that the men were still inside.
“I’m not sure I’ve actually told you thanks, yet,” Logan said after Daeng checked for him one more time. “Without you and your men, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Daeng shrugged. “You would have found her. You would have just done it a different way. You’re more resourceful than you look.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m serious, though,” Logan said after a few seconds. “You’ve done a lot more than you needed to.”
“I’ve done exactly what I needed to.”
Logan looked at him. Daeng’s eyes were focused through the window on the other building, but after a moment, he glanced over. “What?”
“That’s just kind of an odd statement.”
“Is it? Aren’t you doing the same?”
The question surprised Logan. He was doing what he felt he had to do, but was it exactly what he had to do? Only if he were able to bring Elyse home alive. Otherwise, what he was currently doing would turn out not to be enough. Again.
Daeng seemed to sense Logan’s discomfort. He smiled, then said, “How’s the weather in L.A.?”
Logan looked out the window. “Nice when I left. Seventies.”
“I miss that. Most of the time it doesn’t even get down to seventy during the night here.”
“How long were you in Los Angeles?”
Daeng was silent for a moment. “Almost ten years.”
“You must have been young when you got there.”
“Eight and a half.”
Logan felt like he probably asked more than he should have, so he said nothing. But, apparently he was wrong.
After a brief pause, Daeng said, “My mom had died three months before, and my dad…well, let’s just say he wasn’t cut out for raising a kid on his own. So he sent me off to live with his sister in the States.”
On the street below, Logan watched a pickup truck drive by, mattresses stacked high in the back.
“I was fortunate, though,” Daeng went on. “My aunt had loved my mom, so she made it a point that I learned all I could about my Burmese background. My father would have never done that. My mother’s people, my people…they haven’t had it easy. The things the generals over there have done…” He gestured in what Logan assumed was the direction of Burma. “No one should do those things.” He paused, then glanced over. “Would you believe I used to be a monk?”
“I thought I heard somewhere that all Thai men spend a few months being a monk.”
Daeng waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I’m not talking about a temporary monk. I spent three years in that life. The temple I lived in was in a town several hours north of here. It was peaceful. At the time, I thought I would never do anything else. But in 2007, things changed. That fall, there were protests in Burma.”
“I’ve read about them,” Logan said.
“I felt moved by this, and thought that the time had finally come for my mother’s people to free themselves. When I heard that the Burmese monks in Rangoon had taken up on the side of the people, and were actually leading the protests, I knew I couldn’t just stay here in Thailand and do nothing. Against the wishes of my temple, I snuck across the border and made my way to Rangoon. I wanted to do what I could.”
Like Tooney’s wife.
“For two days I wore my robes and marched in the protests with my brother monks, and my mother’s countrymen. There was an excitement in the air, a feeling that maybe we could actually change things this time. I stayed at a temple with over two hundred other monks right in the city, but since I had come late, and was the outsider, I was given floor space in a room that was normally used as a classroom with three others. The next day, all two hundred monks were going to go to a rally. It was to be the biggest yet. Only in the middle of the night,