Tears glistened in Tooney’s eyes as he fell silent for a moment. “It was very hard on our daughters. They handled it very different. Anka was still in high school. She focused on her studies, and began working hard to lose the little bit of accent she still had. She wanted nothing to do with the country that would imprison her mother.
“Sein went the other way, and follow her mother’s example. She became more involved in the democracy movement. Doing what she could from over here, taking over where my wife left off. When we learned Thiri had died, Sein got even more involved, speaking out, organizing, doing whatever she could. Now she is a powerful voice outside of Burma, calling for removal of the generals who rule over our people. She travels around the world, talks to groups wherever she can.” He took a deep breath. “Thiri would be very proud of her.”
“I’m sure you’re proud of her, too,” Logan said.
“I am.” There was a wistfulness in his voice, a sadness that confused Logan. When Tooney saw the look on his face, he said. “Sein blame me. Not much for her mother’s death, but for not going back to Burma with my wife and helping the movement. Maybe if I went, maybe Thiri would still be alive. But Anka was in school. I had to stay. Thiri made me promise to watch over the girls.” A tear finally rolled down his cheek. “Sein and I not talk much anymore.”
Tragedy on top of tragedy. Logan gave him a moment, then said, “I’m still not clear what all this has to do with Elyse’s disappearance.”
Tooney looked at him. “The man yesterday morning, he told me Elyse taken to shut up her mother. If Sein cooperates, they will let Elyse go. There is a human rights conference in London in two weeks. Sein is supposed to give important speech there. They don’t want this to happen.”
“But who are they?”
“The Burmese false government, of course. The generals of Myanmar, as they have decide to call our country.”
“Wait. You think the Myanmar government is behind your granddaughter’s kidnapping?”
The look on Tooney’s face said it should be obvious. “Who else? They are crazy. They are not like other countries. Believe me, I know.”
Logan let this sink in for a second, but found it hard to believe a foreign government was kidnapping people in the U.S. “The man who attacked you wasn’t Burmese. He was Caucasian.”
Harp scoffed. “Probably just hired for the job.”
“I don’t know. It sounds too—”
“Crazy?” Tooney asked.
“But why kill you?”
“Elyse is the important one. Not me. Maybe I was just in the way.”
Logan hesitated. “What about the rest of your family? Have any of them been attacked, too?”
“They can’t get to Sein. She is in Europe with Khin and oldest daughter, Yon. The foundation that she work for give her with excellent security. Besides, Burma would want to quietly shut her up, not kill her. Her death would be international news and focus more attention on the country, not less.”
“Have you called her and told her about Elyse?”
“I wanted to know for sure he was not lying to me first. That’s what I’ve been telling myself, anyway. But the truth is that I know Sein won’t answer even if I do call.”
“You’re going to have to try and get a hold of her somehow.”
He looked ashamed. “I know.”
Logan paused for a second. “If Sein’s death would focus more attention on Burma, wouldn’t killing her daughter do the same thing?”
Tooney shook his head. “Elyse is not high profile like Sein. Her death could be made to look like anything. An accident, suicide, whatever they want. Besides, Sein would never let it come to that. They know this. Our children are always our weaknesses. She will do what they want so Elyse will live.”
“And if we call the police?”
“They will kill her now. Make her disappear so they can claim zero responsibility and avoid creating international incident. No one will ever know what happened. It is the only thing they can do.”
“What about your other daughter?” I asked.
“Anka’s married to an American. She has an American last name. That’s her protection. They would not want the kind of trouble they think might happen by hurting her.”
“Elyse is an American, too. Hurting her is going to cause just as many problems.”
“They won’t see it that way. To them, she is one hundred percent Burmese, like her mother, and her grandmother.”
Logan leaned back. “There’s no guarantee they won’t kill Elyse anyway.”
Tooney paused, then locked eyes with him. “One way is for sure, the other is…unknown.”
15
Logan didn’t call the FBI.
He didn’t promise Tooney he wouldn’t, but he did say he would think about it and let him know what he was going to do. But he knew even then that he wouldn’t make that call.
He wasn’t ready to buy the whole story yet. The idea of Burma—or Myanmar, as the leaders there preferred—reaching its hand all the way into the United States to pluck a twenty year-old college student off the street just didn’t sound right. Unless things had changed since he last checked, Burma had showed little interest in the world outside its borders. Would they even have the resources to pull something like this off? He had his doubts. But they weren’t strong enough for him to test the theory by calling the FBI.
Which meant he needed to find out what was really going on.
While Logan spent his morning at the police station, his dad and the others had unexpectedly done a little work for him and found the address of Elyse’s friend Lara Mendonca. They hadn’t, however, been able to further identify her other friend, Anthony.
Lara lived just south of LAX in an area called El Segundo. Her apartment was on the third floor in a generic box of a building, a block off of Imperial Highway.
Logan knocked, half expecting no one to answer. It was afternoon, and though Lara would be on spring break, he thought even if she were still in town there was a good chance she was out and about.
The door opened, and a woman about Elyse’s age and wearing a Starbuck’s Coffee uniform looked out. “Yes?”
“Lara Mendonca?”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
Logan tried not to let his sense of relief show as he said, “Logan Harper. You’re a friend of Elyse Myat’s, right?”
She looked at him, warily. “Yeah.”
“I’m a friend of her grandfather. Tooney.”
She continued to stare. “So?”
“Can I ask you a few questions?”
“It’s almost time for me to go to work. What kind of questions?”
“Well, Tooney’s concerned about her. She was supposed to visit him yesterday, but she didn’t show up. And now we can’t find her anywhere.”
The suspicion on her face immediately turned into concern. “Are you serious?”
Logan nodded. “When was the last time you talked to her?”
She looked away in thought. “The night before last. Yesterday she was supposed to go up to…” She looked at Logan again, testing him.
“Cambria,” he said. “To visit her grandfather.”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t make it.”
“Oh, God. Did you check the hospitals? Maybe she was in an accident.”
“We checked. No accident,” he said. “Could I come in for a minute? Might be easier than talking out here.”
She hesitated only a second, then nodded, and moved to the side so he could enter.
Unlike Ryan’s apartment, Lara’s place was furnished in a much more finished, post-college style—real paintings on the walls, furniture that didn’t look twenty years old, and no smell of stale pizza.
As soon as they were seated in the living room, he asked, “What was her mood like when you last talked?”