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