Eleanor turned on the flashlight and studied the print while they walked. Sun walked several paces behind them. Bosch continued to explain his plan.

“You have to remember that everything in the window is reflected backwards. But you see the goalposts on top of the Bank of China building? I have a magnifying glass here if you want to use it.”

“Yes, I see it.”

“Well, between those posts you can see the pagoda down here. I think it’s called the Lion Pagoda or the Lion Lookout. I’ve been up here with Maddie.”

“So have I. It’s called the Lion Pavilion. Are you sure it’s on here?”

“Yeah, you need the glass. Wait till we get up here.”

The path curved and Bosch saw the pagoda-style structure ahead. It was in a prominent position, offering one of the better views from the Peak. Whenever Bosch had been here in the past it was crowded with tourists and cameras. In the gray light of dawn it was empty. Bosch stepped through the arched entrance and out to the viewing pavilion. The giant city spread out below him. There were a billion lights out there in the receding darkness and he knew one of them belonged to his daughter. He was going to find it.

Eleanor stood next to him and held the printout under the beam of the flashlight. Sun took a bodyguard’s position behind them.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “You think you can reverse this and pinpoint where she is?”

“That’s right.”

“Harry?…”

“There are other markers. I just want to narrow it down. Kowloon is a big place.”

Bosch pulled his binoculars from the backpack. They were powerful magnifiers he used on surveillance assignments. He raised them to his eyes.

“What other markers?”

It was still too dark. Bosch lowered the binoculars. He would have to wait. He thought maybe they should have gone to Wan Chai to get the gun first.

“What other markers, Harry?”

Bosch stepped close to her so he could see the photo print and point out the markers Barbara Starkey had told him about, particularly the portion of the backwards sign with the letters O and N. He also told her about the audio track from a nearby subway and reminded her of the helicopter, which was not on the printout.

“You add it all up and I think we can get close,” he said. “If I can get close, I’ll find her.”

“Well, I can tell you right now you are looking for the Canon sign.”

“You mean Canon cameras? Where?”

She pointed in the distance toward Kowloon. Bosch looked through the binoculars again.

“I see it all the time when they fly me in and out over the harbor. There is a Canon sign on the Kowloon side. It’s just the word canon standing free on top of a building. It rotates. But if you were behind it in Kowloon when it rotated toward the harbor, you would see it backwards. Then in the reflection it would be corrected. That has to be it.”

She tapped the O-N on the photo print.

“Yeah, but where? I don’t see it anywhere.”

“Let me see.”

He handed her the binoculars. She spoke as she looked.

“It’s normally lit up but they probably turn it off a couple hours before dawn to save energy. A lot of the signs are out right now.”

She lowered the binoculars and looked at her watch.

“We’ll be able to see it in about fifteen minutes.”

Bosch took the binoculars back and started searching for the sign again.

“I feel like I’m wasting time.”

“Don’t worry. The sun’s coming up.”

Thwarted in his efforts, Bosch reluctantly lowered the binoculars and for the next ten minutes watched the light creep over the mountains and into the basin.

The dawn came up pink and gray. The harbor was already busy as workboats and ferries crisscrossed paths in what looked like some kind of natural choreography. Bosch saw a low-lying mist clinging to the towers in Central and Wan Chai and across the harbor in Kowloon. He smelled smoke.

“It smells like L.A. after the riots,” he said. “Like the city’s on fire.”

“It is in a way,” Eleanor said. “We’re halfway through Yue Laan.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“The Hungry Ghost festival. It began last week. It’s set to the Chinese calendar. It is said that on the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month the gates of hell open and all the evil ghosts stalk the world. Believers burn offerings to appease their ancestors and ward off the evil spirits.”

“What kind of offerings?”

“Mostly paper money and papier-mâché facsimiles of things like plasma screens and houses and cars. Things the spirits supposedly need on the other side. Sometimes people burn the real things, too.”

She laughed and then continued.

“I once saw somebody burning an air conditioner. Sending an air conditioner to an ancestor in hell, I guess.”

Bosch remembered his daughter talking about this once. She said she had seen someone burning an entire car.

Bosch gazed down on the city and realized what he had taken as morning mist was actually smoke from the fires, hanging in the air like the ghosts themselves.

“Looks like there’s a lot of believers out there.”

“Yes, there are.”

Bosch raised his gaze to Kowloon and brought up the binoculars. Sunlight was finally hitting the buildings along the harborside. He panned back and forth, always keeping the goalposts on top of the Bank of China in his field of vision. Finally, he found the Canon sign Eleanor had mentioned. It sat atop a glass-and-aluminum-skinned building that was throwing sharp reflections of light in all directions.

“I see the sign,” he said, without looking away.

He estimated the building that the sign was on at twelve floors. The sign sat atop an iron framework that added at least another floor to its height. He moved the binoculars back and forth, hoping to see something else. But nothing grabbed at him.

“Let me see again,” Eleanor said.

Bosch handed over the binoculars and she quickly zeroed in on the Canon sign.

“Got it,” she said. “And I can see that the Peninsula Hotel is across the street and within two blocks of it. It’s one of the helicopter-pad locations.”

Bosch followed her line of sight across the harbor. It took him a moment to find the sign. It was now catching the sun full-on. He was beginning to feel the sluggishness of the long flight breaking off. Adrenaline was kicking in.

He saw a wide road cutting north into Kowloon next to the building with the sign on top.

“What road is that?” he asked.

Eleanor kept her eyes at the binoculars.

“It’s got to be Nathan Road,” she said. “It’s a major north-south channel. Goes from the harbor up into the New Territories.”

“The triads are there?”

“Absolutely.”

Bosch turned back to look out toward Nathan Road and Kowloon.

“Nine Dragons,” he whispered to himself.

“What?” Eleanor asked.

“I said, that’s where she is.”

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.”