The Black Echo Part 29

"For two reasons," the SWAT man said. "If they wire the tunnel as we a.s.sume they will, the flash could detonate the charges. We could see Wilshire Boulevard out there drop thirty feet, and we don't want that. Think of the paperwork."

When no one smiled, he continued. "Secondly, that's a gla.s.s room we are talking about. Our position in there would be very vulnerable. If they have a lookout, we're dead. We think they go with radio silence when they've got the explosives out. But what if they don't and this lookout lets them know we're out there. They might be ready to toss something out at us while we're tossing something in."

Rourke added his own thoughts. "Never mind the lookout. We put a SWAT team in that gla.s.s room and they can watch it on TV. We'll have every station in L.A. with a camera out on the sidewalk and traffic backed up to Santa Monica. It'd be a circus. So forget that. SWAT will get with Gearson, do the recon and get the exits down by the freeway covered. We wait for them underneath and we take 'em on our terms. That's it."

The SWAT man nodded and Rourke continued. "Starting tonight we'll have twenty-four-hour surveillance topside on the vault. I want Wish, Bosch, on the vault side of the building. Hanlon, Houck, on Rincon Street so you can see the door. If it looks or sounds like it is going down, I want to be alerted and I will alert SWAT to stand by. Use landlines if possible. We don't know if they are monitoring our freeks. You people on the surveillance will have to work out a code to use on the radio. Everybody got that?"

"What if there is an alarm?" Bosch asked. "There have been three so far this week."

Rourke thought a moment and said, "Handle it routinely. Meet the callout manager, Avery or whoever, at the door and reset the alarm and send him on his way. I'll get back to Orozco and tell him to send his patrols on the alarms but we'll handle things."

"Avery will get the callouts," Wish said. "He already knows what we think is going to happen here. What if he wants to open the vault, take a look around?"

"Don't let him. It's that simple. It's his vault but his life would be endangered. We can prevent it."

Rourke looked around at the faces. There were no more questions.

"Then that's it. I want people in position in ninety minutes. That gives you all-nighters time to eat, p.i.s.s and get coffee. Wish, give me status reports, landline, at midnight and oh six hundred. Got it?"

"Got it."

Rourke and the SWAT man got in the car where Gearson was waiting and drove down the ramp. Bosch, Wish, Hanlon, and Houck then worked out a radio code to use. They decided to switch the streets in the surveillance area with the names of streets downtown. The idea was if anyone was listening to the simplex 5 public safety frequency, they would think they were hearing reports on a surveillance at Broadway and First Street in downtown instead of Wilshire and Rincon in Beverly Hills. They also decided to refer to the vault room as a p.a.w.nshop while on the radio. That done, the two sets of investigators split up and agreed to check in at the start of the surveillance. As Hanlon and Houck's car headed toward the ramp, Bosch, alone with Wish for the first time since the plans were set, asked what she thought.

"I don't know. I don't like the idea of letting them go into the vault and then run around loose down there after.

I wonder if the SWAT team can really cover everything." "I guess we'll find out."

A car came up the ramp and drove toward them. The lights blinded Bosch, and for a moment he thought of the car that had come at them the night before. But then the car swerved and came to a stop. It was Hanlon and Houck. The pa.s.senger window was rolled down and Houck held a thick manila envelope out the window.

"Mail call, Harry," the agent said. "Forgot we were supposed to give this to you. Somebody from your office dropped it by the bureau today, said you were waiting for it but hadn't been by Wilc.o.x to get it."

Bosch took the envelope and held it out away from his body. Houck noticed the discomfort on his face.

"The guy's name was Edgar, a black guy, said you used to be partners," Houck said. "Said it had been sitting in your mailbox two days and he thought it might be important. Said he was showing somebody a house out in Westwood and decided to drop it by while he was in the area. That sound legit to you?"

Bosch nodded and the two agents drove away again. The heavy envelope was sealed but the return address was the U.S. Armed Services Records Archive in St. Louis. He tore off the end of the envelope and looked inside. There was a thick file of papers.

"What is it?" Wish asked.

"It's Meadows's package. I forgot I ordered it. Did it Monday, before I knew you guys were on the case. Anyway, I've already seen this stuff."

He tossed the envelope through the open window of the car onto the backseat.

"Hungry?" she asked him.

"I want some coffee at least."

"I know a place."

Bosch was sipping steaming black coffee from a plastic cup he had taken from the restaurant, an Italian place on Pico behind Century City. He was in the car, back in place on the second floor of the parking garage across Wilshire from the vault. Wish opened the door and got in after making her midnight check-in call to Rourke.

"They found the Jeep."

"Where?"

"Rourke says SWAT did the reconnaissance ride through the Wilshire storm sewer but found no sign of intruders or a tunnel entry. Looks like Gearson was right. They're tucked in one of the smaller tributary lines. Anyway, the SWAT guys then went down to the drainage wash by the freeway to set the trap. They were deploying at three exit positions from the tunnels when they came across the Jeep. Rourke said there's a car pool parking lot down by the freeway. There's a beige Jeep parked with a covered trailer attached. It's theirs. The three blue ATVs are in the trailer."

"Is he getting a warrant?"

"Yeah, he's got somebody trying to find a judge now. So they'll have it. But they aren't going to go near it until they take down the operation. In case their plan is for someone to come out and get the ATVs. Or somebody already outside is going to show up and drive 'em in.

Bosch nodded and sipped. It was the smart way to go. He remembered he had a cigarette going in the ashtray and tossed it out the open window.

As if guessing what he would be thinking, she said, "Rourke said that from what they could see there was no blanket in the back of the Jeep. But if it's the Jeep Meadows's body was carried to the reservoir in, there still should be fiber evidence."

"What about the seal that Sharkey saw on the door?"

"Rourke said there was no seal. But there could have been one and they just took it off when they were leaving the Jeep out there."

"Yeah," Bosch said. After a few moments of thought, he said, "Does it bother you how everything is just coming together so well?"

"Should it?"

Bosch shrugged his shoulders. He looked up Wilshire. The curb in front of the fireplug was empty. Since they had come back from dinner Bosch hadn't seen the white LTD, which he'd been sure was an IAD car. He didn't know if Lewis and Clarke were around or had called it a night.

"Harry, good detective work pays off with cases that come together," Eleanor told him. "I mean, we aren't out of the dark on this by a long shot. But I think we finally have a measure of control. d.a.m.ned sight better than we were three days ago. So why the worry when a few things finally start coming together?"

"Three days ago Sharkey was still alive."

"Well, while you're taking the blame for that, why don't you add everybody else who has ever made a choice and gotten themselves killed. You can't change those things, Harry. And you're not supposed to be a martyr."

"What do you mean, choice? Sharkey didn't make any choice."

"Yes, he did. When he chose the streets, he knew he might die on the streets."

"You don't believe that. He was a kid."

"I believe that s.h.i.t happens. I believe that the best you can do in this job is come out even. Some people win and some lose. Hopefully, half the time it is the good guys who win. That's us, Harry."

Bosch drank his cup dry and they sat in silence for a while after that. They had a clear view of the vault sitting at the center of the gla.s.s room like a throne. Out there in the open, polished and shiny under the bright ceiling lights, it said "Take me" to the world, he thought. And somebody would. We're going to let them.

Wish picked up the radio handset, keyed the transmit b.u.t.ton twice and said, "Broadway One to First, do you guys copy?"

"We copy, Broadway. Anything?" It was Houck's voice on the comeback. There was a lot of static, as the radio waves ricochetted off the tall buildings in the area.

"Only checking. What's your position?"

"We are due south of the front door of the p.a.w.nshop. A clear view of nothing going on."

"We're east. Can see the-" She clicked off the mike and looked at Bosch. "We forgot a code for the vault. Got any ideas?"

Bosch shook his head no, but then said, "Saxophone. I've seen saxophones hanging in p.a.w.nshop windows. Musical instruments, lots of them."

She clicked the mike open again. "Sorry, First Street, had technical difficulty. We are east of the p.a.w.nshop, have the piano in the window in sight. No activity inside."

"Stay awake."

"That's a K. Broadway out."

Bosch smiled and shook his head.

"What?" she said. "What?"

"I've seen lots of musical instruments in p.a.w.nshops, but I don't know about a piano. Who is going to take a piano to a p.a.w.nshop? You'd need a truck. We've blown our cover now." He picked up the radio mike, but without clicking the transmit b.u.t.ton, and said, "Uh, First Street, check that. It's not a piano in the window. That's an accordion. Our mistake."

She slugged him on the shoulder and told him to never mind the piano. They settled into an easy silence. Surveillance jobs were the bane of most detectives' existence. But in his fifteen years on the job Bosch had never minded a single stakeout. In fact, many times he enjoyed them when he was with good company. He defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company. Bosch thought about the case and watched the traffic pa.s.s by the vault. He recapped the events as they had occurred, in order, from start to present. Revisiting scenes, listening to the dialogue over again. He found that often this reaccounting helped him make the next choice or step. What he mulled over now, poking at it like a loose tooth with his tongue, was the hit-and-run. The car that had come at them the night before. Why? What did they know at that point that made them so dangerous? It seemed to be a foolish move to kill a cop and a federal agent. Why was it undertaken? His mind then drifted to the night they had spent together after all the questions were asked by all the supervisors. Eleanor was spooked. More so than he. As he had held her in her bed, he felt as though be were calming a frightened animal. Holding and caressing her as she breathed into his neck. They had not made love. Just held each other. It had somehow seemed more intimate.

"Are you thinking about last night?" she asked then.

"How did you know?"

"A guess. Any ideas?"

"Well, I think it was nice. I think we-"

"I'm talking about who tried to kill us last night."

"Oh. No, no ideas. I was thinking about the after."

"Oh. . . . You know, I didn't thank you, Harry, for being with me like that, not expecting anything."

"I should thank you."

"You're sweet."

They drifted into their own thoughts again. Leaning against the door with his head against the side window, Bosch rarely took his eyes off the vault. Traffic on Wilshire was light but steady. People heading to or from the clubs over on Santa Monica Boulevard or around Rodeo Drive.

There was probably a premiere at nearby Academy Hall. It seemed to Bosch that every limousine in L.A. was working Wilshire this night. Stretch cars of all makes and colors cruised by, one by one. They moved so smoothly they seemed to float. They were beautiful, and intriguing with their black windows. Like exotic women in sungla.s.ses. A car built just for this city, Bosch thought.

"Has Meadows been buried?"

The question surprised him. He wondered what tumble of thought led to it. "No," he answered. "Monday, over at the veterans cemetery."

"A Memorial Day funeral, sounds kind of fitting. So his life of crime did not disqualify him from being placed in such sacred ground?"

"No. He did his time over there in Vietnam. They've saved a s.p.a.ce for him. There's probably one there for me, too. Why did you ask?"

"I don't know. Just thinking is all. Will you go?"

"If I'm not sitting here watching this vault."

"That will be nice of you. I know he meant something to you. At one point in your life."

He let it drop, but then she said, "Harry, tell me about the black echo. What you said the other day. What did you mean?"

For the first time he looked away from the vault and at Eleanor. Her face was in darkness, but headlights from a pa.s.sing car lit the interior of the car for a moment and he could see her eyes on his. He looked back at the vault.

"There isn't anything really to tell. It's just what we called one of the intangibles."

"Intangibles?"

"There was no name for it, so we made up a name. It was the darkness, the damp emptiness you'd feel when you were down there alone in those tunnels. It was like you were in a place where you felt dead and buried in the dark. But you were alive. And you were scared. Your own breath kind of echoed in the darkness, loud enough to give you away. Or so you thought. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Just . . . the black echo."

She let some time slide between them before she said, "I think your going to the funeral is nice."

"Is something wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I said. The way you're talking. You haven't seemed right since last night. Like something-I don't know, forget it."

"I don't know, either, Harry. You know, after the adrenaline wore off, I guess I kind of just got scared. Made me start thinking about things."

Bosch nodded his head but didn't say anything. His mind drifted and he remembered a time in the Triangle when a company that had taken heavy casualties from sniper fire stumbled onto the entrance to a tunnel complex. Bosch, Meadows and a couple of other rats named Jarvis and Hanrahan were dropped at a nearby LZ and escorted to the hole. The first thing they did was drop a Couple of LZ flares, a blue one and a red one, into the hole and blow the smoke in with a Mighty Mite fan, to find the other entrances in the jungle. Pretty soon ribbons of smoke started curling out of the ground at a couple dozen spots for two hundred yards in all directions. The smoke was coming up through the spider holes the snipers used as firing positions or to move in and out of the tunnels. There were so many of them, the jungle was turning purple from the smoke. Meadows was stoned. He popped a ca.s.sette into the portable tape player he always carried and started blasting Hendrix's "Purple Haze" into the tunnel. It was one of Bosch's most vivid memories, aside from his dreams, of the war.

He never liked rock and roll after that. The jolting energy of the music reminded him too much of the war.

"Did you ever go see the memorial?" Eleanor asked.

She didn't have to say which one. There was only the one, in Washington. But then he remembered the long black replica he had watched them installing at the cemetery by the Federal Building.

"No," he said after a while. "I've never seen it."

After the air in the jungle cleared and the Hendrix tape was done, the four of them had gone into the tunnel while the rest of the company sat on backpacks and chowed and waited. An hour later, only Bosch and Meadows had come back. Meadows carried with him three NVA scalps. He held them up for the troops above ground and yelled, "You're looking at the baddest blood brother in the black echo." And so came the name. Later, they found Jarvis and Hanrahan in the tunnels. They had fallen into punji traps. They were dead.

Eleanor said, "I visited it when I was living in D.C. I couldn't make myself go to the dedication in eighty-two. But a lot of years later I finally got the courage. I wanted to see my brother's name. I thought maybe it would help me sort things out, you know, about what happened with him."

"And did it?"

"No. Made it worse. It made me angry. It left me with this need for justice, if that makes sense. I wanted justice for my brother."

The silence filled the car again and Bosch poured more coffee into his cup. He was beginning to feel the onset of caffeine jitters but couldn't stop. He was addicted. He watched a couple of drunks who were stumbling down the street stop in front of the window before the vault. One of the men threw his hands up as if trying to gain a measure of the vault's huge door. After a while they moved on. He thought of the rage Eleanor must have felt because of her brother. The helplessness. He thought of his own rage. He knew the same feelings, maybe not to the same degree but from a different perspective. Anybody who was touched by the war knew some part of those feelings. He had never worked it out completely and wasn't sure he wanted to. The anger and sadness gave him something that was better than complete emptiness. Is that what Meadows felt? He wondered. The emptiness. Is that what bounced him from job to job and needle to needle until he was finally and fatally used up on this last mission? Bosch decided that he would go to Meadows's funeral, that he owed him that much.

"You know what you were telling me the other day about that guy, the Dollmaker killer?" Eleanor asked.

"What about it?"

"IAD, they tried to make a case that you executed him?"