Nine Dragons (15 page)

He sat down at his desk and thought about calling Ferras to see if the judge had signed the warrant, but he knew it was too soon and that Ferras would call the minute he got the permission for the searches. He pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Everything about the case was on hold until the judge signed. All he could do was wait.

But then he remembered he had gotten the video message from his daughter earlier and had not looked at it. He knew his daughter would be long asleep by now—it was after 4
A.M.
Saturday in Hong Kong. Unless she was at a sleepover with friends, in which case she might be up all night but wouldn’t want her father calling in, anyway.

He pulled out his phone and opened it. He was still getting used to all the techno bells and whistles on it. On the last day of his daughter’s most recent visit to L.A. they had gone to the phone store and she had selected his-and-her cells, choosing a model that would allow them to communicate on multiple levels. He didn’t use it much for e-mail but he knew how to open and play the thirty-second videos she liked to send. He saved them all and often played them over again.

Bo-Jing Chang temporarily faded away. Concern about the leak receded. Bosch had a smile of anticipation on his face when he pushed the button and opened her latest video message.

17

B
osch stepped into the interview room and left the door open. Chu was in midquestion but stopped and looked up at the intrusion.

“Is he not answering?” Bosch asked.

“Won’t say a word.”

“Let me give it a try.”

“Uh, sure, Harry.”

He stood up and Bosch moved to the side so he could leave the room. He handed Bosch the clipboard.

“Good luck, Harry.”

“Thanks.”

Chu left, closing the door behind him. Bosch waited a moment until he was sure he was gone, then moved swiftly around behind Chang. He slammed the clipboard off his head and then grabbed him around the neck with his arms. His rage grew uncontrolled. He locked his arms tightly in the choke hold long outlawed by the department. He felt Chang tense as he realized his air intake had been cut.

“Okay, motherfucker, the camera’s off and we’re in a soundproof room. Where is she? I will kill you right here if—”

Chang reared up from his seat, pulling the anchor bolt of the cuff ring right through the top of the table. He smashed Bosch back against the wall behind them and together they fell to the floor. Bosch kept his grip and cinched it even tighter. Chang fought like an animal, using his feet against one of the anchored legs of the table as leverage and he repeatedly smashed Bosch back into the corner of the room.

“Where is she
?” Bosch yelled.

Chang was making grunting sounds but showing no sign of losing power. His wrists were cuffed together but he was still able to swing his arms together back over his head like a club. He was going for Bosch’s face at the same time he was using his body to crush Harry into the corner.

Bosch realized that the choke hold wasn’t going to work and that he had to release and attack. He let go and caught Chang’s wrist on one of his backward swings. He shifted his weight and turned the blow to the side. Chang’s shoulders turned with the shift in momentum and Bosch was able to get on top of him on the floor. Bosch raised his hands together and brought down a hammer blow on the back of Chang’s neck.

“I said, Where is—”

“Harry!”

The voice came from behind him. It was Chu’s.

“Hey!”
Chu yelled into the squad room.
“Help!”

The distraction allowed Chang to rise up and get his knees under his body. He then pushed up and Bosch was thrown into the wall and then down to the floor. Chu jumped on Chang’s back and was trying to wrestle him to the ground. There were running steps and soon more men squeezed into the tiny room. They piled onto Chang, roughly pinning him to the floor with his face smashed into the corner. Bosch rolled away, trying to catch his breath.

For a moment everyone was silent and the room filled with the sounds of all of the men gasping for breath. Lieutenant Gandle then appeared in the open doorway.

“What the hell happened?”

He leaned forward to look down through the hole in the top of the table. The bolt had obviously not been properly reinforced underneath. One of many kinks that were sure to surface in the new building.

“I don’t know,” Chu said. “I came back to get my jacket and all hell was breaking loose.”

All eyes in the room turned to Bosch.

“They’ve got my daughter,” he said.

18

B
osch stood in Gandle’s office. Not still. He couldn’t stand still. He paced back and forth in front of the desk. The lieutenant had told him twice to sit down but Bosch couldn’t do it. Not with the terror growing inside his chest.

“What’s this about, Harry?”

Bosch pulled his phone and opened it.

“They have her.”

He pushed the play command on the video program, then handed the phone to Gandle, who had sat down behind his desk.

“What do you mean, ‘They have—’”

He stopped as he watched the video.

“Oh, Jesus…Oh, Je—Harry, how do you know this is real?”

“What are you talking about? It’s real.
They have her and that guy knows who and where!
”

He pointed in the direction of the interview room. He was pacing more quickly now, like a caged tiger.

“How do you do this? I want to see it again.”

Bosch grabbed the phone and restarted the video.

“I need to get in there with him again,” Bosch said as Gandle watched. “I need to make him tell—”

“You’re not going anywhere near him,” Gandle said without looking up. “Harry, where is she, Hong Kong?”

“Yes, Hong Kong, and that’s where he was going. It’s where he’s from and it’s where the triad he’s in is based. On top of that, they called me. I told you. They said there were consequences if—”

“She doesn’t say anything here. Nobody says anything. How do you know it’s Chang’s people?”

“It’s the triad! They don’t have to say anything! The video says it all. They have her. That’s the message!”

“Okay, okay, let’s think this through. They have her and what’s the message? What are you supposed to do?”

“Let Chang go.”

“What do you mean, let him just walk out of here?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, kick the case somehow. Lose the evidence or, better yet, stop looking for the evidence. Right now, we don’t have enough to hold him past Monday. That’s what they want, for him to walk. Look, I can’t just stand in here. I have to—”

“We have to get this to forensics. That’s the first thing. Have you called your ex to see what she knows?”

Bosch realized that in his immediate panic upon seeing the video, he had not called his ex-wife, Eleanor Wish. He had first tried to call his daughter. Then when he got no answer he had immediately gone to confront Chang.

“You’re right. Give me that.”

“Harry, it’s got to go to forens—”

Bosch leaned across the desk and grabbed the phone out of Gandle’s hand. He switched over to the phone program and hit a speed dial for Eleanor Wish. He checked his watch while he waited for the call to go through. It was almost 5
A.M.
Saturday in Hong Kong. He didn’t understand why he wouldn’t have already heard from Eleanor if their daughter was missing.

“Harry?”

The voice was alert. She had not been dragged from sleep.

“Eleanor, what’s going on? Where’s Madeline?”

He walked out of Gandle’s office and headed toward his cubicle.

“I don’t know. She hasn’t called me and doesn’t answer my calls. How do you know what’s going on?”

“I don’t but I got a…a message from her. Tell me what you know.”

“Well, what did her message say?”

“It didn’t say anything. It was a video. Look, just tell me what’s going on there.”

“She didn’t come home from the mall after school. It was Friday, so I let her go with her friends. She usually checks in about six and asks for more time, but this time she didn’t. Then when she didn’t come home I called and she wouldn’t answer my call. I left her a bunch of messages and I got really angry. You know her, she probably got angry back and she didn’t come home. I’ve called her friends and they all claim not to know where she is.”

“Eleanor, it’s after five in the morning there. Did you call the police?”

“Harry…”

“What?”

“She did this once before.”

“What are you talking about?”

Bosch dropped heavily into the seat at his desk and huddled down, holding the phone tight against his ear.

“She stayed with a friend all night to ‘teach me a lesson,’” Eleanor said. “I called the police then and it was all very embarrassing because they found her at her friend’s. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But she and I have been having problems. She’s at that age, you know? She acts much older than she really is. And it seems like she doesn’t like me very much right now. She talks about wanting to live in L.A. with you. She—”

Bosch cut her off.

“Listen, Eleanor, I understand all of that but this is different. Something’s happened.”

“What do you mean?”

Panic flooded her voice. Bosch recognized his own fear in it. He was reluctant to tell her about the video but felt he now had to. She needed to know. He described the thirty seconds of video, leaving nothing out. Eleanor made a high-pitched keening sound that only a mother could make for a lost daughter.

“Oh my God, oh my God.”

“I know, but we’re going to get her back, Eleanor. I—”

“Why did they send it to you and not me?”

He could tell she was starting to cry. She was losing it. He didn’t answer her question because he knew it would only make it worse.

“Listen to me, Eleanor, we need to keep it together. You have to do this for her. You’re there, I’m not.”

“What do they want, money?”

“No…”

“Then, what?”

Bosch tried to speak calmly, hoping it would be contagious over the phone when the impact of his words came through.

“I think it’s a message to me, Eleanor. They’re not asking for money. They’re just telling me that they have her.”

“You? Why? What do they—Harry, what did you do?”

She said the last question in a tone of accusation. Bosch feared it was a question he might be impaled on for the rest of his life.

“I’m on a case involving a Chinese triad. I think—”

“They took her to get to you? How did they even know about her?”

“I don’t know yet, Eleanor. I’m working on it. We have a suspect in cust—”

Again she cut him off, this time with another wail. It was the sound of every parent’s worst nightmare come to life. In that moment Bosch realized what he was going to do. He lowered his voice further when he spoke.

“Eleanor, listen to me. I need you to pull yourself together. You need to start making calls. I’m coming over. I’ll be there before dawn Sunday morning. In the meantime, you have to get to her friends. You have to find out who she was with at the mall and where she went. Anything you can find out about what happened. Do you hear me, Eleanor?”

“I’m hanging up and calling the police.”

“No!”

Bosch looked around and saw that his outburst had drawn attention from across the squad room. After the incident in the interview room, he was already the subject of concern across the whole squad. He slid further down into his seat and crouched over his desk so no one could see him.

“What? Harry, we have to—”

“Listen to me first and then you do what you think you need to do. I don’t think you should call the police. Not yet. We can’t take the chance that the people who have her will know. We might never get her back then.”

She didn’t respond. Bosch could hear her crying.

“Eleanor? Listen to me! Do you want to get her back or not? Get your shit together. You were an FBI agent! You can do this. I need you to work it like an agent until I get there. I’m going to have the video analyzed. In the video, she kicked at the camera and it moved. I saw a window. They might be able to work with it. I’m taking a plane tonight and will come directly to you when I land. You have all of that?”

There was a long moment before Eleanor responded. When she did, her voice was calm. She had gotten the message.

“I have it, Harry. I still think we have to call the Hong Kong police.”

“If that’s what you think, then, fine. Do it. Do you know anybody there? Anybody you can trust?”

“No, but they have a Triad Bureau. They’ve come into the casino.”

Almost twenty years removed from her time as an agent, Eleanor was a professional card player. For at least six years she had been living in Hong Kong and working for the Cleopatra Casino in nearby Macau. All the high rollers from the mainland wanted to play against the
gweipo
—the white woman. She was a draw. She played with house money, got a cut of the winnings and no part of the losses. It was a comfortable life. She and Maddie lived in a high-rise in Happy Valley and the casino sent a helicopter to pick her up on the roof when it was time to go to work.

Comfortable until now.

“Talk to your people at the casino,” Bosch said. “If there is someone you are told you can trust, then make the call. I need to hang up and get moving here. You’ll hear from me before I fly.”

She answered as if in a daze.

“Okay, Harry.”

“If you come up with something, anything at all, you call me.”

“Okay, Harry.”

“And Eleanor?”

“What?”

“See if you can get me a gun. I can’t take my own over.”

“They put you in prison for guns over here.”

“I know that, but you know people from the casino. Get me a gun.”

“I’ll try.”

Bosch hesitated before hanging up. He wished he could reach out and touch her, somehow try to calm her fears. But he knew that was impossible. He couldn’t even calm his own.

“All right, I’m going to go. Try to stay calm, Eleanor. For Maddie. We stay calm and we can do this.”