Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly

Author:Michael Connelly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Thrillers, Fiction, Azizex666, General
ISBN: 9780316166317
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2009-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

* * *

Bosch and his daughter usually took the funicular tram up and back down from the Peak. It reminded Bosch of a sleek and greatly extended version of Angels Flight back in L.A., and at the bottom his daughter liked to visit a small park near the courthouse where she could hang a Tibetan prayer flag. Often the small, colorful flags were strung like laundry on clotheslines across the park. She had told Bosch that hanging a flag was better than lighting a candle in a church because the flag was outside and its good intentions would be carried far on the wind.

There was no time to hang flags now. They got back into Sun’s Mercedes and headed down the mountain toward Wan Chai. Along the way, Bosch realized that one route down would take them directly by the apartment building where Eleanor and his daughter lived.

Bosch leaned forward from the backseat.

“Eleanor, let’s go by your place first.”

“Why?”

“Something I forgot to tell you to bring. Madeline’s passport. Yours, too.”

“Why?”

“Because this won’t be over when we get her back. I want both of you away from here until it is.”

“And how long is that?”

She had turned to look back at him from the front seat. He could see the accusation in her eyes. He wanted to try to avoid all of that so that the rescue of his daughter was the complete focus.

“I don’t know how long. Let’s just get the passports. Just in case there is no time later.”

Eleanor turned to Sun and spoke sharply in Chinese. He immediately pulled to the side of the road and stopped. There was no traffic coming down the mountain behind them. It was too early for that. She turned fully around in her seat to face Bosch.

“We’ll stop for the passports,” she said evenly. “But if we need to disappear, don’t think for a minute we will be going with you.”

Bosch nodded. The concession that she would be willing to do it was enough for him.

“Then maybe you should pack a couple bags and put them in the trunk, too.”

She turned back around without responding. After a moment Sun looked over at her and spoke in Chinese. She responded with a nod and Sun started down the mountain again. Bosch knew that she was going to do what he’d asked.

Fifteen minutes later Sun stopped in front of the twin towers commonly known by locals as “The Chopsticks.” And Eleanor, having said not a single word in those fifteen minutes, extended an olive branch to the backseat.

“You want to come up? You can make a coffee while I pack the bags. You look like you could use it.”

“Coffee would be good but we don’t have —”

“It’s instant coffee.”

“Okay, then.”

Sun stayed with the car and they went up. The “chopsticks” were actually two interlinked and oval–shaped towers that rose seventy–three stories from the midslope of the mountain above Happy Valley. It was the tallest residential building in all of Hong Kong and as such stuck out at the edge of the skyline like two chopsticks protruding from a pile of rice.

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