9 Dragons

Michael, was in the division as well, working as a blood spatter expert.
    Starkey looked up from a twin-screen computer workstation where she was looking at grainy video from a bank robbery. On the screens were double images-one more in focus than the other-of a man pointing a gun at a teller’s window.
    “Harry Bosch! The man with the plan.”
    Bosch had no time for banter. He approached and got right to the point.
    “Barb, I need your help.”
    Starkey frowned when she noted the urgency in his voice.
    “What’s up, darling?”
    Bosch held his phone up.
    “I’ve got a video on my phone. I need to blow it up and slow it down to see if I can identify location. It’s an abduction.”
    Gesturing toward her screen, Starkey said, “I’m right in the middle of this two eleven in West?-”
    “My daughter’s on it, Barbara. I need your help now.”
    This time Starkey didn’t hesitate.
    “Let me see it.”
    Bosch opened the phone and started the video, then handed it to her. She viewed it wordlessly and kept any other nonprofessional response out of her face. If anything, Bosch saw her posture straighten and an aura of professional urgency emerge.
    “Okay, can you send this to me?”
    “I don’t know. I know how to send it to your phone.”
    “Can’t you send e-mail on here with an attachment?”
    “I can send e-mail but I don’t know about an attachment. I’ve never tried.”
    Starkey walked him through it and he sent Starkey an e-mail with the video as an attachment.
    “Okay, now we wait for it to come in.”
    Before Bosch could ask how long that would be, there was a chime from her computer.
    “There it is.”
    Starkey closed her work on the bank robbery, then opened her e-mail and downloaded the video. Soon she had it playing on the left screen. In full-screen size the image was blurred by the pixel spread. Starkey reduced it to half-screen size and it became clearer. Much clearer and harsher than when Bosch had seen the images on his phone. Harry looked at his daughter and tried hard to stay focused.
    “I’m so sorry, Harry,” Starkey said.
    “I know. Let’s not talk about it.”
    On the screen, Maddie Bosch, thirteen years old, sat tied to a chair. A gag made of bright red cloth cut tightly across her mouth. She wore her school uniform, a blue plaid skirt and white blouse with the school crest above the left breast. She looked at the camera-her own cell phone camera-with eyes that tore Bosch’s heart out.
Desperate
and
scared
were only the first words of description that went through his mind.
    There was no sound, or rather no one said anything at first on the video. For fifteen seconds the camera held on her and that was enough. She was simply on display for him. The rage came back to Bosch. And the helplessness.
    Then the person behind the camera reached into the frame and pulled the gag temporarily loose from Maddie’s mouth.
    “Dad!”
    The gag was immediately replaced, muffling what was yelled after that single word and leaving Bosch unable to interpret it.
    The hand then dropped down in an attempt to fondle one of the girl’s breasts. She reacted violently, shifting sideways in her bindings and kicking her left leg up at the outstretched arm. The video frame momentarily swung out of control and then was brought back to Maddie. She had fallen over in the chair. For the last five seconds of video the camera just held on her. The screen then went black.
    “There’s no demand,” Starkey said. “They’re just showing her.”
    “It’s a message to me,” Bosch said. “They’re telling me to back off.”
    Starkey didn’t respond at first. She put both her hands on an editing deck attached to the computer’s keyboard. Bosch knew that by manipulating the dials, she was able to move the video forward and backward with precise control.
    “Harry, I’m going to go through this frame by frame but it’s going to take some time,” she said. “You’ve got thirty seconds of video here.”
    “I can go through it with you.”
    “I think it would be better if you let me do my job and then I call you the moment I find anything. Trust me, Harry. I know she’s your daughter.”
    Bosch nodded. He knew he had to let her work without breathing down her neck. It would bring the best results.
    “Okay. Can we just take a look at the kick and then I’ll leave you to it? I want to see if there’s something there. He moved the camera when she kicked at him and there was a flash of light.