Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

“They are in the white Mercedes,” he said.

The car he pointed at was a block and a half ahead, moving in light traffic.

“Is she driving?” Bosch asked.

“No, she and the boy got into a waiting car. A man was driving.”

“Okay, you got them? I need to make a call.”

“I have them.”

As Sun followed the white Mercedes, Bosch called Chu back.

“It’s Bosch.”

“Okay, I got some information through HKPD. But they were asking me a lot of questions, Harry.”

“Give me the information first.”

Bosch pulled out his notebook and pen.

“Okay, the phone number you gave me is registered to a company. Northstar Seafood and Shipping. Northstar is one word. It’s located in Tuen Mun. That’s up in the New-”

“I know. You have the exact address”

Chu gave him an address on Hoi Wah Road and Bosch repeated it out loud. Sun nodded his head. He knew where it was.

“Okay, anything else?” Bosch asked.

“Yes. Northstar is under suspicion, Harry.”

“What’s that mean? Suspicion of what”

“I couldn’t get anything specific. Just of illegal shipping and trade practices.”

“Like human trafficking”

“It could be. Like I said, I could not get specific information. Just questions about why I was tracing the number.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That it was a blind trace. The number was found on a piece of paper in a homicide investigation. I said I didn’t know the connection.”

“That’s good. Is there any name associated with this phone number”

“Not directly to the number, no. But the man who owns Northstar Seafood and Shipping is Dennis Ho. He is forty-five years old and that’s all I could get without making it seem like I was working something specific. Does it help?”

“It helps. Thanks.”

Bosch ended the call and then updated Sun on what he knew.

“Have you heard of Dennis Ho?” he asked.

Sun shook his head.

“Never.”

Bosch knew they had to make a major decision.

“We don’t know if this woman has anything to do with this,” Bosch said, pointing ahead at the white Mercedes. “We could be just spinning our wheels here. I say we break off of this and go directly to Northstar.”

“We don’t need to decide yet.”

“Why not? I don’t want to waste time on this.”

Sun nodded in the direction of the white Mercedes. It was about two hundred yards ahead.

“We are already heading toward the waterfront. They may be going there.”

Bosch nodded. Both angles of investigation were still in play.

“How’s your gas?” Bosch asked.

“Diesel,” Sun replied. “And we are fine.”

For the next half hour they edged the coastline on Castle Peak Road, staying a good distance behind the Mercedes but always keeping it in sight. They drove without speaking to each other. They had reached a point where they knew time was short and there was nothing else to say. Either the Mercedes or Northstar would lead them to Maddie Bosch or it was likely they would never see her again.

As the vertical buildup of housing estates in Central Tuen Mun appeared ahead of them, Bosch saw the turn signal on the Mercedes engage. The car was turning left, away from the waterfront.

“They’re turning,” he warned.

“That’s a problem,” Sun said. “The industrial waterfront is ahead. They are turning toward residential neighborhoods.”

They were both silent for a moment, hoping a plan would materialize or maybe the driver of the Mercedes would realize they needed to go straight and correct the car’s course.

Neither happened.

“Which way?” Sun finally asked.

Bosch felt a tearing inside. His choice here could mean his daughter’s life. He knew that he and Sun could not split up with one following the car and the other going to the waterfront. Bosch was in a world he did not know and would be useless on his own. He needed Sun with him. He came to the same conclusion he had reached after the call from Chu.

“Let her go,” he finally said. “We go to Northstar.”

Sun kept going straight and they passed the white Mercedes as it took the left on a road marked Tsing Ha Lane. Bosch glanced out the window at the car as it slowed down. The man driving glanced back at him but only for a second.

“Shit,” Bosch said.

“What is it?” Sun asked.

“He looked at me. The driver. I think they knew we were following them. I think we had it right-she’s part of this.”

“Then this is good.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“If they knew we were following, then their turning away from the waterfront could be an effort to lead us away from Northstar. You see?”

“I see. Let’s hope you’re right.”

Soon they entered an industrial waterfront area filled with ramshackle warehouses and packing plants lined along the wharfs and piers. There were river barges and medium-size seafaring boats docked up and down, sometimes two and three abreast. All of it seemed abandoned for the day. No work on Sunday.

Several fishing boats were moored out in the harbor, all safe behind a typhoon shelter created by a long concrete pier that formed the outer perimeter of the harbor.

Traffic thinned and Bosch began to worry that the casino’s slick black Mercedes would be too noticeable as they made the approach to Northstar. Sun must have been thinking the same thing. He pulled into the parking lot of a closed food shop and stopped the car.

“We are very close,” he said. “I think we leave the car here.”

“I agree,” Bosch said.

They got out and walked the rest of the way in, holding tight against the warehouse facades and scanning in all directions for forward spotters. Sun led the way and Bosch was right behind him.

Northstar Seafood and Shipping was located on wharf 7. A large green warehouse with Chinese and English printing on its side fronted the dockside and a pier extended out into the bay beyond it. Four -seventy-five-foot net boats with black hulls and green pilothouses were tied up on either side of the pier. Docked at the end was a bigger boat with a large crane jutting skyward.

From his viewpoint at the corner of a warehouse on wharf 6, Bosch could see no activity. The loading bay doors of the Northstar warehouse were all rolled down and the docks and boats looked buttoned up for the weekend. Bosch was beginning to think he had made a terrible mistake in not keeping the tail on the white Mercedes. Then Sun tapped his shoulder and pointed down the length of the pier to the crane boat at the end.

His aim was high and Bosch followed it to the crane. The steel arm extended from a platform that sat atop a rail system fifteen feet over the deck of the boat. The crane could be moved up and down the length of the boat depending upon which ship’s hold was being filled with cargo. The boat was obviously designed to go out to sea and relieve smaller net boats of their catch so that they could continue to harvest. The crane was controlled from a small booth on the upper platform that protected the operator from the wind and other elements at sea.

It was the tinted windows of the booth that Sun was pointing at. With the sun in the sky beyond the boat, Bosch could see the silhouette of a man in the booth.

Bosch pulled himself back around the corner with Sun.

“Bingo,” he said, his voice already tightening with the sudden blast of adrenaline. “Do you think he saw us?”

“No,” Sun said. “I saw no reaction.”

Bosch nodded and thought about their situation. He now believed with complete conviction that his daughter was somewhere on that boat. But getting to the boat without the lookout spotting them seemed impossible. They could wait for him to come down for a meal or bathroom break or a changing of the watch, but there was no telling when that would be or if it would even happen. Waiting defied the urgency that was growing in Bosch’s chest.