a good time so far,” he said. “How about you guys?”
“Yeah, great,” Barry said. “This is our fourth temple already.”
“But the best,” Saoirse added. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”
“Definitely. Where’s your other friend?” Logan asked.
“Who? Brian?” Barry said. “He saw all those steps and decided to stay at the bottom and get something to eat.”
“Can’t believe he’s missing out on this,” the girl said.
Logan made a face like he couldn’t believe it either, then said, “You know, there is a tram hidden around the side, too, for those who don’t want to do the stairs.”
Barry laughed. “Yeah, we didn’t tell him about that. Thought the exercise would do him good. But when he saw the stairs, he said, ‘No way.’ His loss.”
“Definitely is.” Logan smiled again. “Well, my friend’s in here somewhere, so…”
“Sure. Of course,” Barry said. “Have a good time. Maybe we’ll see you around town.”
Logan gave them a wave, then headed toward the stupa.
There were a lot more people there now than when they’d done their earlier walk through. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad. It would certainly be easier to lose people this way, but he also thought it might make the others think twice before resorting to deadly force.
He spotted Daeng standing next to an altar in the wide aisle. Nearby a smiling monk chatted away with an elderly Asian couple. Daeng had a Bluetooth receiver tucked in his ear, but didn’t appear to be talking to anyone at the moment, so Logan moved in next to him.
“Anything?” he whispered.
“The murderers from the secret police are here already. Six total. Two in white shirts and khaki pants off to my left. Three on the far side, one in a tropical shirt, one in a brown, and one in a blue. You passed the last guy when you walked in. Wearing a brown T-shirt. He was interested in you until you talked to your friends over there.”
“Anyone else?”
“No sign of Daw Myat, and no sign of Bell and Elyse. But if we’re going by the time Taw told us, we still have more than ten minutes.”
“Those stairs will take them that long, so they’ll take the tram for sure.”
Logan made a quick circuit of the stupa to get a look at the generals’ team. The common terms he would have used to describe them were focused and tough. He guessed it would have been a little too much to expect them to be disinterested and out of shape.
A group of monks in bright saffron robes entered through a back door, then walked over to one of the roof-covered shrines. As they passed Logan, he bowed like the other people around him were doing. Once the monks moved on, he worked his way back around to where he started.
That’s when Daeng caught his eye, then scratched his temple with two fingers—their sign that Elyse and her kidnappers were on their way up.
That left only Sein, but it made sense that she’d be last. Bell definitely wouldn’t want her to show up before he did. Too much of a chance the generals’ men would grab her and leave. That, no doubt, would negate the contract.
As expected, Bell and his team took the tram to the top. The second Logan saw Elyse he could tell she was still drugged. She was leaning heavily against Bell, her eyes barely open. He, in turn, had his arm around her, propping her up.
They were loosely surrounded by six of Bell’s men. Two were the men Logan had seen on the train, and one was the jerk who chased him and Angie on the L.A. freeways. But the guy who tried to kill Tooney wasn’t there, and there were at least three others missing.
Waiting at the bottom? Logan wondered. Or were they already up here and he hadn’t seen them?
He stepped over to Daeng and told him about the missing men. Daeng nodded, then quickly moved away to a less-crowded area, and touched the Bluetooth device in his ear.
Logan looked back at Bell and Elyse. They were walking toward the stupa with the man from Myanmar in the brown T-shirt following not far behind them.
Near Logan was a row of beautiful Buddha statues, each with a pot of sand in front for sticking incense sticks into. He kept his eyes focused on these as he worked his way from one to the other, trying to get as close as he could to Elyse without attracting attention.