Bosch studied them to see if they reacted to this information. They showed nothing.

There was a file on the table in front of the men from Hong Kong. Wu opened it and took out a document with a paper clip on it. He slid it across the table to Bosch.

“This is statement from Sun Yee. It has been translated into English. Please read and acknowledge for accuracy.”

Haller leaned in next to Bosch and they read the two-page document together. Bosch immediately recognized it as a prop. It was their investigative theory disguised as a statement from Sun. About half of it was correct. The rest was assumption based on interviews and evidence. It attributed the murders of the Peng family to Bosch and Sun Yee.

Harry knew they were either trying to bluff him into telling what really happened or had arrested Sun and forced him to sign his name to the story they preferred, namely that Bosch had been responsible for a bloody rampage across Hong Kong. It would be the best way to explain nine violent deaths on one Sunday. The American did it.

But Bosch remembered what Sun had said to him at the airport. I will handle these things and make no mention of you. This is my promise. No matter what happens, I will leave you and your daughter out of it.

“Gentlemen,” Haller said, completing his read of the document first. “This document is-”

“Total bullshit,” Bosch finished.

He slid the document back across the table. It hit Wu in the chest.

“No, no,” Wu said quickly. “This is very real. This is signed by Sun Yee.”

“Maybe if you held a gun to his head. Is that how you do it over there in Hong Kong?”

“Detective Bosch!” Wu exclaimed. “You will come to Hong Kong and answer these charges.”

“I’m not going anywhere near Hong Kong ever again.”

“You have killed many people. You have used firearms. You placed your daughter above all Chinese citizens and-”

“They were blood-typing her!” Bosch said angrily. “They took her blood. You know when they do that? When they’re trying to match organs.”

He paused and watched the growing discomfort on Wu’s face. Bosch didn’t care about Lo. Wu was the power and if Bosch got to him, he would be safe. Haller had been right. In the back of the Lincoln, he had set the subtle strategy for the interview. Rather than focus on defending Bosch’s actions as self-defense, make clear to the men from Hong Kong what would be brought to the international media stage should they pursue any sort of case against Bosch.

Now was the time to make that play and Haller took over and calmly moved in for the kill.

“Gentlemen, you can hang on to your signed statement there,” he said, a seemingly permanent smile playing on his face. “Let me summarize the facts that are supported by the actual evidence. A thirteen-year-old American girl was abducted in your city. Her mother dutifully called the police to report this crime. The police declined to investigate the crime and then-”

“The girl had run away before,” Lo interjected. “There was no reas-”

Haller held up a finger to cut him off.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, now a tone of contained outrage in his voice and the smile gone. “Your department was told an American girl was missing and chose, for whatever reason, to ignore the report. This forced the girl’s mother to look for her daughter herself. And the first thing she did was call in the girl’s father from Los Angeles.”

Haller gestured to Bosch.

“Detective Bosch arrived and together with his ex-wife and a friend of the family, Mr. Sun Yee, they began the search that the Hong Kong police had determined they would not be involved in. On their own, what they found was evidence that she had been kidnapped for her organs. This American girl, they were going to sell her for her organs!”

His outrage was growing and Bosch believed it was not an act. For a few moments Haller let it float over the table like a thundercloud before continuing.

“Now, as you gentlemen know, people got killed. My client isn’t going to get into the details with you about all of that. Suffice it to say that, left alone in Hong Kong without any help from the government and police, this mother and father trying to find their daughter encountered some very bad people and there were kill-or-be-killed situations. There was provocation!?”

Bosch saw the two Hong Kong detectives physically lean back as Haller shouted the last word. He then continued in a calm and well-modulated courtroom voice.

“Now, we know you want to know what happened and you have reports that need to be filled out and supervisors who need to be informed. But you have to seriously ask yourself, is this the proper course to take?”

Another pause.

“Whatever happened in Hong Kong occurred because your department failed this young American girl and this family. And if you are now going to sit back and analyze what actions Detective Bosch took because your department failed to act properly-if you are looking for a scapegoat to take back with you to Hong Kong-then you won’t find one here. We won’t be cooperating. However, I do have someone here whom you will be able to talk to about all of this. We can start with him.”

Haller pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and slid it across the table to them. Wu picked it up and studied it. Haller had shown it to Bosch earlier. It was the business card of a reporter from the Los Angeles Times.

“Jock Meekeevoy,” Lo read. “He has information about this?”

“That’s Jack McEvoy. And he has no information now. But he would be very interested in a story like this.”

This was all part of the plan. Haller bluffing. The truth was, and Bosch knew, that McEvoy had been laid off by the Times six months earlier. Haller had dug the old card out of a stack of business cards he kept wrapped in a rubber band in his Lincoln.

“That’s where it will start,” Haller said calmly. “And I think it will make a great story. Thirteen-year-old American girl kidnapped in China for her organs and the police do nothing. Her parents are forced into action and the mother is killed trying to save her daughter. From there it will go international for sure. Every paper, every news channel in the world will want a part of this story. They’ll make a Hollywood movie out of it. And Oliver Stone will direct it!”

Haller now opened his own file that he had carried into the meeting. It contained the news stories he had printed in the car following his Internet search. He slid a set of printouts across the table to Wu and Lo. They moved closer together to share.

“And finally, what you have there is a package of news articles that I will be providing to Mr. McEvoy and any other journalist who makes an inquiry of me or Detective Bosch. These articles document the recent growth of the black market in human organs in China. The waiting list in China is said to be the longest in the world, with some reports of as many as a million people waiting for an organ at any given time. Doesn’t help that a few years back and under pressure from the rest of the world, the Chinese government banned the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners. That only heightened the demand and value of human organs on the black market. I am sure you will be able to see from those stories from very credible newspapers, including the Beijing Review, where Mr. McEvoy will be going with his story. It’s up to you now to decide if that is what you want to happen here.”

Wu turned so he could whisper in rapid-fire Chinese directly into Lo’s ear.

“No need to whisper, gentlemen,” Haller said. “We can’t understand you.”

Wu straightened himself.

“We would like to make private telephone call before continuing the interview,” he said.

“To Hong Kong?” Bosch asked. “It’s going on five in the morning there.”