Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

“Can I get that copy?”

“I’m already printing it. It takes a couple minutes because it’s a high-res printer.”

“Got it.”

Bosch stared at the image on the screen, looking for any other details that would help. Most notable was a partial reflection of the building his daughter was held in. A line of air-conditioning units protruded beneath the windows. That meant it was an older building and that might help him draw a bead on the place.

“Kowloon,” Starkey said. “Sounds sort of ominous.”

“My daughter told me it means ‘Nine Dragons.’”

“See, I told you. Who would name their neighborhood Nine Dragons unless they wanted to scare people away?”

“It comes from a legend. During one of the old dynasties the emperor was supposedly just a boy who got chased by the Mongols into the area that is now Hong Kong. He saw the eight mountain peaks that surrounded it and wanted to call the place Eight Dragons. But one of the men who guarded him reminded him that the emperor was a dragon too. So they called it Nine Dragons. Kowloon.”

“Your daughter told you this?”

“Yeah. She learned it in school.”

Silence followed. Bosch could hear the printer working somewhere behind him. Starkey got up and went behind a stack of boxes and pulled the printout of the window reflection out of the high-resolution graphics printer.

She handed it to Bosch. It was a glossy reprint on photo paper. It was as clear as the image on the computer screen.

“Thanks, Barbara.”

“I’m not done, Harry. Like I said, I’m going to look at every frame of that video-thirty per second-and if there’s something else that will help, I’ll find it. I’ll also take the audio track apart.”

Bosch just nodded and looked down at the printout in his hand.

“You’ll find her, Harry. I know you will.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

Bosch called his ex-wife on the speed dial while on the way back to the PAB. She answered the call with an urgent question.

“Harry, anything”

“Not a lot but we’re working on it. I am pretty sure the video I was sent was shot in Kowloon. Does that mean anything to you”

“No. Kowloon? Why there?”

“I have no idea. But we may be able to find the place.”

“You mean the police will?”

“No, I mean you and me, Eleanor. When I come. In fact, I still need to book my flight. Have you called anybody? What have you got?”

“I don’t have anything!” she yelled, surprising Bosch. “My daughter is somewhere out there and I don’t have anything! The police don’t even believe me!”

“What are you talking about? You called them?”

“Yes, I called them. I can’t sit here and just wait for you to show up tomorrow. I called the Triad Bureau.”

Bosch felt his insides tighten. He couldn’t bring himself to trust strangers, experts though they might be, with his daughter’s life.

“What did they say?”

“They put my name into the computer and got a hit. The police have a file on me. Who I am, who I work for. And they knew about the time before. When I thought she was kidnapped and it turned out she was staying at her friend’s. So they didn’t believe me. They think she ran away again and her friends are lying to me. They said to wait a day and call back if she doesn’t show up.”

“Did you tell them about the video?”

“I told them but they didn’t care. They said if there is no ransom demand, then it was probably staged by her and her friends to get attention. They don’t believe me!”

She started crying in frustration and fear but Bosch considered the police reaction and thought it could work in their favor.

“Eleanor, listen to me, I think this is good.”

“Good? How could it be good? The police are not even looking for her.”

“I told you before, I don’t want the police. The people who have her will see the police coming a mile away. But they won’t see me.”

“This isn’t L.A., Harry. You don’t know your way like you do there.”

“I’ll find my way and you’ll help me.”

There was a long silence before she responded. Bosch was almost back to the PAB.

“Harry, you have to promise me you’ll get her back.”

“I will, Eleanor,” he responded without hesitation. “I promise you. I’m going to get her back.”

He walked into the main lobby, holding his jacket open so the badge on his belt could be seen at the fancy new reception counter.

“I gotta go up an elevator now,” he said. “I’ll probably lose the connection.”

“Okay, Harry.”

But he stopped outside the elevator alcove.

“I just thought of something,” he said. “Was one of the friends you talked to named He?”

“He”

“Yeah, H-E . Maddie said it means ‘river.’ She told me that was the name of one of the friends she hangs out with in the mall.”

“When was this?”

“You mean when did she tell me? Just a few days ago. Must’ve been Thursday for you. Thursday morning when she was walking to school. I was talking to her and brought up the smoking you mentioned. She-”

Eleanor interrupted by making some kind of sound of disgust.

“What?” Bosch asked.

“That was why she’s treated me like shit lately,” she said. “You ratted me out.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. I sent her a photo I knew would bait her into calling me and the smoking would come up. It worked. And when I told her that she better not be smoking, she mentioned He. She said sometimes at the mall He’s older brother hangs out to watch over her, and he’s the one that smokes.”

“I don’t know any of her friends named He, or her brother. I guess that shows how out of touch I am with my own daughter.”

“Listen, Eleanor, at a time like this we’re both going to be second-guessing everything we ever did or said to her. But it’s a distraction from what we need to be focusing on now. Okay? Don’t get distracted by what you did or didn’t do. Let’s focus on getting her back.”

“Okay. I’ll go back to her friends that I do know. I’ll find out about He and her brother.”

“Find out if the brother’s got any connection to a triad.”

“I’ll try.”

“I’ve gotta go, but one more thing. Did you find out about that other thing yet?”

Bosch nodded to a couple other RHD detectives who walked by on the way to the elevator. They were from Open-Unsolved, which had its own squad room, and didn’t appear to look at him like they knew what was going on. This was good, Bosch thought. Maybe Gandle was keeping it under wraps.

“You mean the gun?” Eleanor asked.

“Yeah, that.”

“Harry, it’s not even dawn here. I’ll get on that when I am not calling people in their beds.”

“Right, okay.”

“I will call people about He, though. Right now.”

“Okay, good. Let’s call each other if we get something.”

“Good-bye, Harry.”

Bosch closed his phone and went into the alcove. The other detectives were gone and he caught the next elevator. On the way up alone he looked at the phone in his hand and thought about it being the predawn hours in Hong Kong. It had been daylight on the video message that had been sent to him. That meant that his daughter could have been abducted as long as twelve hours ago.

There had not been a second message. He pushed the speed dial for her and once again the call went directly to the message. He ended the call and put the phone away.

“She’s alive,” he said to himself. “She’s alive.”

He managed to get to his cubicle in RHD without drawing any attention. There was no sign of Ferras or Chu. Bosch pulled an address book out of a drawer and opened it to a page where he listed airlines that flew LAX to Hong Kong. He knew there were choices in airlines but not a lot of play on time. All the flights would leave between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. and they would land early Sunday morning. Between the fourteen-plus-hour flight and fifteen-hour time difference, all of Saturday would evaporate during the journey.