Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

Eleanor finally stepped back and wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand.

“You need to keep it together, Eleanor. I’m going to need you.”

“ Stop saying that, okay? I will keep it together. Where do we start”

“Did you get the MTR map I asked for?”

“Yes, I’ve got it. It’s in the car.”

“What about the card from Causeway Taxi? Did you check it out”

“We didn’t have to. Sun Yee already knew about it. Most of the taxi companies are known to hire triad people. Triad people need legitimate jobs to avoid suspicion and keep the police away. Most of them get taxi licenses and work a few shifts here and there as a front. If your suspect was carrying the fleet manager’s card, it was probably because he was going to see him about a job when he got over here.”

“Did you go to the address?”

“We went by last night but it’s just a taxi station. It’s where the cars get refueled and serviced and the drivers are dispatched at the start of shift.”

“Did you talk to the fleet manager?”

“No. I didn’t want to make a move like that without asking you. But you were in the air and I couldn’t ask. Besides, it looked to me like a dead end. This was a guy who was probably going to give Chang a job. That’s all. That’s what he does for the triads. He wouldn’t be involved in an abduction. And if he was involved, he wasn’t going to talk about it.”

Bosch thought Eleanor was probably right but that the fleet manager would be someone to come back to if other efforts to locate his daughter didn’t pan out.

“Okay,” he said. “When’s it going to be light out?”

She turned to look out the huge glass wall that fronted the main hall, as if to judge her answer by the sky. Bosch checked his watch. It was 5:45 a.m. and he had already been in Hong Kong nearly an hour. It seemed like the time was going by too quickly.

“Maybe half an hour,” Eleanor said.

Bosch nodded.

“What about the gun, Eleanor?”

She nodded hesitantly.

“If you’re sure, Sun Yee knows where you can get one. In Wan Chai?.”

Bosch nodded. Of course that would be the place to get a gun. Wan Chai was where the underside of Hong Kong came to the surface. He had not been there since going there from Vietnam on leave forty years before. But he knew that some things and places never changed.

“Okay, let’s get to the car. We’re losing time.”

They stepped through the automatic doors and Bosch was greeted by the warm, wet air. He felt the humidity start to cling to him.

“Where are we going first” Eleanor asked. “Wan Chai”

“No, the Peak. We’ll start there.”

It was known as Victoria Peak during colonial times. Now it was just the Peak, a mountaintop that rose behind the Hong Kong skyline and offered stunning vistas across the central district and the harbor to Kowloon. It was accessible by car and funicular tram and was a popular destination with tourists year-round and with locals in the summer months, when the city below seemed to hold humidity like a sponge holds water. Bosch had been there several times with his daughter, often eating lunch in the observatory’s restaurant or the shopping galleria built behind it.

Bosch and his ex-wife and her security man made it to the top before dawn broke over the city. The galleria and tourist kiosks were still closed and the lookout points were abandoned. They left Sun’s Mercedes in the lot by the galleria and walked down the path that edged the side of the mountain. Bosch had his backpack over his shoulder. The air was heavy with humidity. The pathway was wet and he could tell there had been an overnight shower. Already his shirt was sticking to his back.

“What exactly are we doing?” Eleanor asked.

The question was the first she had spoken in a long time. On the drive in from the airport Bosch had set up the video and handed her his phone. She watched it and Bosch heard her breathing catch. She then asked to watch it a second time and silently handed the phone back after. There was a terrible silence that lasted until they were on the path.

Bosch swung the backpack around and unzipped it. He handed Eleanor the photo print from the video. He then handed her a flashlight from the bag as well.

“That’s a freeze-frame from the video. When Maddie kicks at the guy and the camera moves, it catches the window.”

Eleanor turned on the flashlight and studied the print while they walked. Sun walked several paces behind them. Bosch continued to explain his plan.

“You have to remember that everything in the window is reflected backwards. But you see the goalposts on top of the Bank of China building? I have a magnifying glass here if you want to use it.”

“Yes, I see it.”

“Well, between those posts you can see the pagoda down here. I think it’s called the Lion Pagoda or the Lion Lookout. I’ve been up here with Maddie.”

“So have I. It’s called the Lion Pavilion. Are you sure it’s on here?”

“Yeah, you need the glass. Wait till we get up here.”

The path curved and Bosch saw the pagoda-style structure ahead. It was in a prominent position, offering one of the better views from the Peak. Whenever Bosch had been here in the past it was crowded with tourists and cameras. In the gray light of dawn it was empty. Bosch stepped through the arched entrance and out to the viewing pavilion. The giant city spread out below him. There were a billion lights out there in the receding darkness and he knew one of them belonged to his daughter. He was going to find it.

Eleanor stood next to him and held the printout under the beam of the flashlight. Sun took a bodyguard’s position behind them.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “You think you can reverse this and pinpoint where she is?”

“That’s right.”

“Harry?…”

“There are other markers. I just want to narrow it down. Kowloon is a big place.”

Bosch pulled his binoculars from the backpack. They were powerful magnifiers he used on surveillance assignments. He raised them to his eyes.

“What other markers?”

It was still too dark. Bosch lowered the binoculars. He would have to wait. He thought maybe they should have gone to Wan Chai to get the gun first.

“What other markers, Harry?”

Bosch stepped close to her so he could see the photo print and point out the markers Barbara Starkey had told him about, particularly the portion of the backwards sign with the letters O and N . He also told her about the audio track from a nearby subway and reminded her of the helicopter, which was not on the printout.

“You add it all up and I think we can get close,” he said. “If I can get close, I’ll find her.”

“Well, I can tell you right now you are looking for the Canon sign.”

“You mean Canon cameras? Where?”

She pointed in the distance toward Kowloon. Bosch looked through the binoculars again.

“I see it all the time when they fly me in and out over the harbor. There is a Canon sign on the Kowloon side. It’s just the word canon standing free on top of a building. It rotates. But if you were behind it in Kowloon when it rotated toward the harbor, you would see it backwards. Then in the reflection it would be corrected. That has to be it.”

She tapped the O-N on the photo print.

“Yeah, but where? I don’t see it anywhere.”

“Let me see.”

He handed her the binoculars. She spoke as she looked.

“It’s normally lit up but they probably turn it off a couple hours before dawn to save energy. A lot of the signs are out right now.”

She lowered the binoculars and looked at her watch.