Nine Dragons (32 page)

Bosch did some quick computing and concluded that the man behind the wheel was the man whose phone number had been placed by Peng in the contact list on his daughter’s phone. He had sent the woman and child—probably his wife and son—inside Geo as decoys that would help him identify the person who had been texting him. Spooked by the last message sent by Sun, he had driven them home or to some other safe spot, dropped them and then driven to wharf 7, where Bosch’s daughter was being held.

It was a lot to string together, considering the few known facts he had, but Bosch believed he was on target and that something was about to happen that wasn’t part of the Mercedes man’s original plan. He was deviating. Hurrying things up or moving the merchandise or doing something worse—getting rid of the merchandise.

The Mercedes stopped in front of the crane boat. The driver jumped out and quickly moved across a gangway onto the boat. He yelled something to the man up in the booth but did not break stride as he quickly headed to the pilothouse.

For a moment, there was no further movement. Then Bosch saw the man step out of the crane booth and start climbing down from the platform. After reaching the deck, he followed the Mercedes man into the pilothouse.

Bosch knew that they had just committed a strategic error that gave him a momentary advantage. This was his chance to move down the pier unseen. He pulled his phone again and called Sun. The phone rang and then went to message.

“Sun, where are you? The Mercedes man is here and they left the boat unguarded. Never mind the distraction, just get back here and be ready to drive. I’m going in.”

Bosch pocketed the phone and stood up. He checked the crane boat one last time and then bolted from cover. He crossed the wharf to the pier and began moving toward the end. He held the gun in a two-handed grip, up and ready.

36

S
tacks of empty crates on the pier afforded Bosch partial cover but the last twenty yards to the gangway of the crane boat were wide open and exposed. He picked up his speed and quickly covered the distance, ducking at the last moment behind the Mercedes idling next to the gangway. Bosch noted the distinctive sound and smell of the diesel engine. He peeked over the line of the trunk and saw no reaction to his moves coming from the boat. He jumped from cover, moved quickly and quietly across the gangway and then picked his way between six-foot-wide hatch covers on the deck. He finally slowed his pace as he reached the pilothouse. He pressed himself against the wall next to the door.

Harry slowed his breathing and listened. He heard nothing over the sound of the throbbing engines other than the wind through the rigging of the boats on the pier. He turned to look in through a small square window in the door. He saw no one inside. He reached to the handle and quietly opened the door and entered.

The room was the operation center of the boat. Besides the wheel, Bosch saw glowing dials, double radar screens, twin throttles and a large gimballed compass. Against the back wall of the room was a chart table next to a set of built-in bunks with curtains that could be pulled for privacy.

On the floor on the forward left was an open hatch with a ladder leading down into the hull. Bosch moved over and crouched next to the opening. He heard voices down below but the language spoken was Chinese. He tried to separate them and count how many men were down there but the echo effect of the hull made this impossible. He knew at a minimum there were three men in the hull. He did not hear his daughter’s voice, but he knew she was down there, too.

Bosch moved to the boat’s control center. There were several different dials and switches but all were marked in Chinese. Finally, he zeroed in on two side-by-side switches with red button lights above them. He turned one switch off and immediately heard the hum of the engines decrease by half. He had killed an engine.

He waited five seconds and turned the other switch, killing the second engine. He then moved to the rear corner of the room and onto the lower bunk. He pulled the curtain closed halfway and crouched and waited. He knew he would be in a blind spot for anyone coming up the ladder from the hull. He returned his gun to his belt and took the switchblade out of his coat pocket. He quietly opened the blade.

Soon he heard running steps from below. This told him the meeting of the men below was in the forward section of the hull. He counted only one set of approaching steps. That would make it easier.

A man began to rise through the hatch, his back to the bunks and his eyes on the control center. Without looking around he moved quickly to the controls and looked for a reason for the double engine stall. He found nothing wrong and went through procedures to restart the engines. Bosch quietly crawled out of the bunk and moved toward him. The moment the second engine trundled to life, he put the point of the switchblade against the man’s spine.

Grabbing him by the back collar, Bosch pulled him away from the control center and whispered in his ear.

“Where’s the girl?”

The man said something in Chinese.

“Tell me where the girl is.”

The man shook his head.

“How many men are below?”

The man said nothing and Bosch roughly yanked him out through the door onto the deck. He moved him over to the rail and bent him over the side. The water was twelve feet below.

“Can you swim, asshole? Where’s the girl?”

“No…speak,” the man managed to say. “No speak.”

Keeping the man down over the rail, Bosch looked around for Sun—his translator—but didn’t see him. Where the hell was he?

The momentary distraction allowed the man to make a move. He swung an elbow backwards into Bosch’s ribs. It was a direct impact and Bosch was knocked back into the sidewall of the pilothouse. The man then spun around and raised his hands to attack. Bosch prepared to cover but it was the man’s foot that came up first, kicking Bosch’s wrist and knocking the knife into the air.

The man didn’t bother tracking the flight of the knife. He quickly waded into Bosch with both fists, striking with short, powerful impacts to the midsection. Bosch felt the air explode out of his lungs just as another kick came up and hit him below the chin.

Bosch went down. He tried to shake off the impact but his eyesight started to close into tunnel vision. His attacker calmly stepped away and Bosch heard the switchblade scrape on the deck as he picked it up. Struggling for consciousness, Bosch reached behind his back for the gun.

As the attacker approached, he spoke in clear English.

“Can you swim, asshole?”

Bosch pulled the gun from behind his back and fired twice, the first shot only ticking the man’s shoulder as he narrowed his aim and the second catching him in the center left of the chest. He went down with a look of surprise on his face.

Harry slowly pulled himself up onto his hands and knees. He saw a line of blood and saliva dripping from his mouth to the deck. Using the wall of the pilothouse, he started to get to his feet. He knew he had to move quickly. The gunshots would have been heard by the men in the boat.

Just as he got to his feet, a riot of gunfire erupted from the direction of the bow. Bullets zinged over his head and ricocheted off the steel wall of the pilothouse. Bosch ducked around the corner and behind the pilothouse. He came up and found a line of sight through the windows of the structure. He saw a man on the bow advancing toward the stern with pistols in each hand. Behind him was the open hatch through which he had climbed out of the front hold.

Bosch knew he had six rounds left and had to assume the approaching gunman had started with full clips. Ammunition-wise, Harry was outnumbered. He needed to go on the offensive and take the gunman out quickly and efficiently.

He looked around for an idea and saw a row of rubber docking bumpers secured along the rear gunwale. He put the gun into his waistband and then grabbed one of the bumpers out of its receptacle. He edged back to the rear window of the pilothouse and looked through the structure again. The gunman had chosen the port side of the pilothouse and was preparing to move to the stern. Bosch stepped back, raised the three-foot-long bumper over his head with two hands, and hurled it high and over the top of the pilothouse. While it was still in the air he started moving down the starboard side, pulling his gun out as he moved.

He got to the front of the pilothouse just as the gunman was ducking away from the flying bumper. Bosch opened fire, hitting the man repeatedly until he went down on the deck without getting off a single shot.

Bosch moved in and made sure the man was dead. He then threw his empty .45 over the side and picked up the dead man’s weapons—two more Black Star semiautomatics. He stepped back into the pilothouse.

The room was still empty. Bosch knew at least one more man was below in the hold with his daughter. He popped the magazines on both guns and counted eleven bullets between the two.

He stuck them in his belt and took the ladder down like a fireman, locking his feet around the vertical bars and sliding into the hull. At the bottom he dropped and rolled, pulling his weapons and expecting to be fired upon, but no more bullets came his way.

Bosch’s eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw that he was in an empty bunk room that opened on a central passageway running the length of the hull. The only light came from the overhead hatch all the way down in the bow. Between Harry and that point were six compartment hatches—three on each side—going down the length of the passageway. The last hatch down on the left was standing wide open. Bosch got up and stuck one of the guns back in his belt so he would have a free hand. He started to move, the remaining gun up and ready.

Each hatch had a four-point locking system for storing and sealing the catch. Arrows stenciled on the rusting steel told Bosch which way to turn each handle to unlock and open the compartment. He moved down the passageway, checking the compartments one by one, finding each empty but obviously not used recently to haul fish. Steel-walled and windowless, each chamber was filled with a ground layer of detritus of cereal and other food boxes and empty gallon water containers. Wooden crates overflowed with other trash. Fishnets—refashioned as hammocks—hung on hooks bolted to the walls. There was a putrid smell in each compartment that had nothing to do with the catch the vessel once hauled. This boat carried human cargo.

What bothered Bosch most were the cereal boxes. They were all the same brand, and smiling from the front of the package was a cartoon panda bear standing on the brim of a bowl that held a treasure of rice puffs sparkling with sugar. It was cereal for kids.

The last stop in the passageway was the open hatch. Bosch crouched low and moved into the compartment in one fluid stride.

It too was empty.

But it was different. There was no trash here. A battery-powered light hung from a wire attached to a hook on the ceiling. There was an upturned shipping crate stacked with unopened cereal boxes, packs of noodles and gallon jugs of water. Bosch looked for any indication that his daughter had been kept in the room, but there was no sign of her.

Bosch heard the hinges on the hatch behind him screech loudly. He turned just as the hatch banged shut. He saw the seal on the upper right corner turn into locked position and immediately saw that the internal handles had been removed. He was being locked in. He pulled the second gun and aimed both weapons at the hatch, waiting for the next lock to turn.

It was the lower right. The moment the bolt started to turn Bosch aimed and fired both guns repeatedly into the door, the bullets piercing metal wakened by years of rust. He heard someone call out as if surprised or hurt. He then heard a banging sound out in the hallway as a body hit the floor.

Bosch moved to the hatch and tried to turn the bolt on the upper right lock with his hand. It was too small for his fingers to find purchase. In desperation, he stepped back a pace and then threw his shoulder into the door, hoping to snap the lock assembly. But it didn’t budge and he knew by the feel of the impact on his shoulder that the door would not give way.

He was locked in.

He moved back close to the hatch and tilted his head to listen. There was only the sound of the engines running now. He banged the heel of one of the guns loudly on the metal hatch.

“Maddie?” he called out. “Maddie, are you here?”

There was no response. He banged again on the hatch, this time even louder.

“Give me a sign, baby. If you’re here, make some noise!”

Again there was no response. Bosch pulled his phone and opened it to call Sun. But he saw he had no signal. He tried the call anyway and got no response. He was in a metal-lined room and his cell phone was useless.

Bosch turned and banged one more time on the door and called out his daughter’s name.

There was no response. Harry leaned his sweating forehead against the rusty hatch in defeat. He was stuck in the metal box and trapped with the realization that his daughter wasn’t even on the boat. He had failed and had gotten what he deserved, what he had earned.

A physical pain shot across his chest, matching the pain in his mind. Sharp, deep and unrelenting. He started breathing heavily, and turned his back against the hatch. He opened his collar another button and slid down the rusting metal until he was sitting on the floor with his knees up. He realized he was in a place as claustrophobic as the tunnels he had once inhabited. The battery on the overhead light was dying and soon he would be left in darkness. Defeat and despair overtook him. He had failed his daughter and he had failed himself.

37

B
osch suddenly looked up from his contemplation of failure. He had heard something. Above the drone of the engines, he’d heard a banging sound. Not from above. It had come from down in the hull.

He jumped up and turned back to the hatch. He heard another banging sound and knew somebody was checking the compartments in the same way he had.

He pounded on the hatch with the heels of both guns. He yelled above the clanging echo of steel on steel.