“You try to trace it? You think it’s serious?”
“A trace would be a waste of time. And as far as the threat goes, let them come. I’ll be waiting. But the point is, how did they know?”
“Know what?”
“That we picked up Chang. We pull him in and then within two hours one of his asshole buddies from the triad calls up and tells me to back the fuck off. We’ve got a leak, Lieutenant. First Chang is tipped, now they know we grabbed him. Somebody’s talking to-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, we don’t know that, Harry. There could be explanations.”
“Yeah? Then how do they know we have Chang?”
“Could be a lot of reasons, Harry. He had a cell phone. Maybe he was supposed to check in from the airport. Could be anything.”
Bosch shook his head. His instincts told him otherwise. There was a leak somewhere. Gandle opened the door. He didn’t like this conversation and wanted to get out of the room. But he looked back at Bosch before leaving.
“You better be careful with this,” he said. “Until you have something like this nailed down, you be very careful.”
Gandle closed the door behind him, leaving Bosch alone in the room. Harry turned to the video screen and saw that Chu had entered the interview room. He sat down across from Chang with a pen and clipboard, ready to fill out the arrest form.
“Mr. Chang, I need to ask you some questions now.”
Chang did not answer. He showed no recognition in his eyes or body language that he had even heard the question.
Chu followed this with a Chinese translation but again Chang remained mute and motionless. This was no surprise to Bosch. He left the interview room and went back out to the squad, still feeling anxious and upset about the phone-call threat and Gandle’s seeming lack of concern about it or the leak that had to have spawned it.
Ferras’s cubicle was empty now and Bosch assumed he had already left with the search warrant application for his appointment with Judge Champagne.
Everything was riding on the search warrant. They had Chang on the attempted extortion of Robert Li-if Li agreed to file a complaint and testify-but weren’t even close on the murder. Bosch was left hoping for a daisy chain. The first search warrant would yield evidence that would support further search warrants and they would lead to the grand prize-the murder weapon-hidden somewhere in Chang’s apartment or workplace.
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
Bosch 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
Bosch 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!”