The Black Echo Part 31

"He must not have been able to warn them, tell them that the diamonds aren't there and that we're up here," he said. "I mean, twenty-four hours ago we didn't know about this place or what was going on. Maybe by the time we got on to it, it was too late. They were too far in."

"So they are just proceeding as planned," Eleanor said.

"They'll pop Tran's box first, if they've done their homework and know which one it is. They'll find it empty, and then what do they do? Split, or open more boxes until they get enough stuff to make the whole thing worth their while?"

"I think they split," she answered. "I think when they open Tran's box and find no diamonds, they figure something is going down and get the h.e.l.l out of there."

"Then we won't have much time. My guess is they will get stuff ready in the vault but they won't actually drill the box until after we've reset the alarm and cleared the scene. We can delay the resetting a bit, but too long and they might get suspicious and clear out, looking and ready for our people in the tunnels."

He got out of the car and looked back at Eleanor.

"Get on the radio. Tell those guys to stay put, then get a message to your SWAT people. Tell them we think we've got people in the vault."

"They'll want to know why Rourke isn't telling them."

"Think of something. Tell them you don't know where Rourke is."

"Where are you going?"

"To meet the patrol callout for the alarm. I'll have them call Orozco out here."

He slammed the door shut and walked down the garage ramp. Eleanor made the radio calls.

As Bosch approached Beverly Hills Safe & Lock he took his badge wallet out, folded it backward and hooked it in the breast pocket of his coat. He turned the corner around the gla.s.s vault room and jogged to the front steps just as a Beverly Hills patrol car pulled up, lights flashing but no siren. Two patrolmen got out, sliding their sticks out of the PVC pipe holders on the doors and then into the rings on their belts. Bosch introduced himself, told them what he was doing and asked them to get a message through to Captain Orozco as soon as possible. One of the cops said the manager, a guy named Avery, was being called out to reset the alarm while the cops checked the place out. All routine. They said they were getting to know the guy, it was the third alarm they had been called to here this week. They also said they already had orders to report any calls to this address to Orozco at his home, no matter the hour.

"You mean these callouts, they weren't false alarms?" said the one named Onaga.

"We aren't sure," Bosch said. "But we want to handle this like it is a false alarm. The manager gets called out and together you reset the alarm and everybody goes on their way. Okay? Just nice and relaxed. Nothing unusual."

"Good enough," said the other cop. The copper plate over his pocket said Johnstone. Holding his nightstick in place on his belt, he trotted back to their cruiser to make the call to Orozco.

"Here's our Mr. Avery now," Onaga said.

A white Cadillac floated to a stop at the curb behind the Beverly Hills car. Avery III, who was wearing a pink sport shirt and madras slacks, got out and walked up. He recognized Bosch and greeted him by name.

"Has there been a break-in?"

"Mr. Avery, we think something might be going on here, we don't know. We need time to check it out. What we want for you to do is open up the office, take a walk around like you usually do, like you did when the alarms went off earlier this week. Then reset the alarm and lock up again."

"That's it? What if-"

"Mr. Avery, what we want you to do is get in your car and drive away like you usually do, like you're going home. But I want you to go around the corner to Darling's. Go in and have a coffee. I'll either come by to tell you what is happening or send for you. I want you to relax. We can handle whatever comes up here. We have other people checking it out, but for the sake of appearances; we want to make it seem that we are pa.s.sing this off as another false alarm."

"I see," Avery said, digging a key ring from his pocket. He walked to the front door and opened it. "And by the way, that is not the vault alarm that is ringing. It is the exterior alarm, set off by vibrations on the windows of the vault room. I can tell. It's a different tone, you see."

Bosch figured the tunnelers had disabled the vault alarm system, not realizing the exterior alarm was a separate system.

Onaga and Avery went in, with Bosch trailing behind. As Harry stood in the entryway looking for smoke and not seeing any, sniffing for cordite but not smelling any, Johnstone came in. Bosch put his hands to his lips to warn the officer against yelling above the sound of the alarm. Johnstone nodded, cupped his hand to Bosch's ear and told him that Orozco would be there in twenty minutes tops. He lived up in the Valley. Bosch nodded and hoped it would be soon enough.

The alarm shut off and Avery and Onaga came out of Avery's office into the lobby, where Johnstone and Bosch waited. Onaga looked at Bosch and shook his head, indicating nothing amiss.

"Do you usually check the vault room?" Bosch asked.

"We just look around," Avery said. He proceeded to the X-ray machine, switched it on and explained it took fifty seconds to warm up. They pa.s.sed the time without talking. Finally, Avery put his hand on the reader. It read it and approved the bone structure and the lock on the first door of the mantrap snapped open.

"Since I don't have my man inside the vault room, I have to override the lock on the second door," Avery said. "Gentlemen, if you don't mind not looking once we are in."

The four of them moved into the tiny mantrap and Avery pushed a set of numbers on the combination lock on the second door. It snapped open and they moved into the vault room. There was nothing to see but steel and gla.s.s. Bosch stood near the vault door and listened but heard nothing. He walked to the gla.s.s wall and looked up Wilshire. He could see that Eleanor was back in the car on the second floor of the garage. He turned his attention to Avery, who walked up to his side as if to look out the window himself but instead huddled into a conspiratorial posture.

"Remember, I can open the vault," he said in a low whisper.

Bosch looked at him and shook his head, then said, "No. I don't want to do that. Too dangerous. Let's get out of here."

Avery had a perplexed look on his face, but Bosch walked away. Five minutes later Beverly Hills Safe & Lock was cleared and locked down. The two cops went back out on patrol and Avery left. Bosch walked back to the garage. The street was busier now, and the noise of the day had begun. The garage was filling with cars and the stink of exhaust. Inside the car, Wish told him that Hanlon, Houck, and SWAT were in holding positions. He told her Orozco was on the way.

Bosch wondered how long it would take before the men in the tunnel believed it was safe to start drilling. Orozco was still ten minutes away. It was a long time.

"So what do we do when he gets here?" she said.

"His town, his call," he said. "We just lay it out for him and do whatever he wants to do. We tell him we have one f.u.c.ked-up operation going here and we don't know who to trust. Not the guy in charge of it, at least."

They sat in silence for a minute or two after that. Bosch smoked a cigarette and Eleanor didn't say anything about it. She seemed lost in her own thoughts, a puzzled look on her face. They both nervously checked their watches every thirty seconds or so.

Lewis waited until the white Cadillac he tailed had turned north off Wilshire. As soon as the car was out of sight of Beverly Hills Safe & Lock, Lewis picked the blue emergency light up off the floor and put it on the dashboard. He flicked it on, but the driver of the Cadillac was already pulling to the side of the road in front of Darling's. Lewis got out of his car and walked up to the Caddy; he was met halfway by Avery.

"What is going on, officer?" Avery said.

"Detective," Lewis said and he opened his badge wallet. "Internal Affairs, LAPD. I need to ask you a few questions, sir. We are conducting an investigation of the man, Detective Harry Bosch, who you were just speaking with at Beverly Hills Safe & Lock."

"What do you mean 'we'?"

"I left my partner on Wilshire so he can keep an eye on your business. But what I would like is for you to step into my car so we can talk for a few minutes. Something is going on and I need to know what."

"That Detective Bosch-hey, how do I know you are for real?"

"How do you know he is? The thing is, we have had Detective Bosch under surveillance for a week, sir, and we know he is engaged in activities that could be, if not illegal, embarra.s.sing to the department. We aren't sure what at this juncture. That's why we need you, sir. Would you step into the car, please?"

Avery took two tentative steps toward the IAD car and then seemed to decide, What the heck. He moved quickly to the pa.s.senger side and got in. Avery identified himself as the owner of Beverly Hills Safe & Lock and briefly told Lewis what had been said during his two encounters with Bosch and Wish. Lewis listened without commenting, then opened the car door. "Wait here, please. I'll be right back."

Lewis walked briskly up to Wilshire; he stood on the corner a few moments apparently looking for someone, then made an elaborate show of checking his watch. He came back to the car and slid in behind the wheel. On Wilshire, Clarke was waiting in the alcove of a store entrance and watching the vault. He caught sight of Lewis's signal and strolled casually to the car.

As Clarke climbed into the backseat, Lewis said, "Mr. Avery here says that Bosch told him to go to Darling's and wait, said there may be people in the vault. Come up from underground."

"Did Bosch say what he would be doing?" Clarke asked.

"Not a word," Avery said.

Everyone was silent, thinking. Lewis couldn't figure it. If Bosch was dirty, what was he doing? He thought some more on this and realized that if Bosch was involved in ripping off the vault, he was in a perfect situation by being the man calling the shots on the outside. He could confuse the coverage on the burglary. He could send all the manpower to the wrong place while his people in the vault went safely the opposite way.

"He's got everybody by the short hairs," Lewis said, more to himself than to the other two men in the car.

"Who, Bosch?" Clarke asked.

"He is running the caper. Nothing we can do but watch. We can't get in that vault. We can't go underground without knowing where we are going. He's already got the bureau's SWAT team tied up down by the freeway. They're waiting for burglars that aren't coming, G.o.ddammit."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Avery said. "The vault. You can get in it."

Lewis turned fully around in his seat to look at Avery. The vault owner told them that federal banking regulations didn't apply to Beverly Hills Safe & Lock because it wasn't a bank, and how he had the computer code that would open the vault.

"Did you tell this to Bosch?" Lewis asked.

"Yesterday and today."

"Did he already know?"

"No. He seemed surprised. He asked detailed questions on how long it would take to open the vault, what I had to do, things like that. Then today, when we had the alarm, I asked him if we should open it. He said no. Just said to get out of there."

"d.a.m.n," Lewis said excitedly. "I better call Irving."

He leapt from the car and trotted to the pay phones in front of Darling's. He dialed Irving at home and got no answer. He dialed the office and only got the duty officer. He had the officer page Irving with the pay phone number. He then waited for five minutes, pacing in front of the phone and worrying about the time going by. The phone never rang. He used the one next to it to call the duty officer back to make sure Irving had been paged. He had. Lewis decided he couldn't wait. He would have to make this call himself and it would be he who would become the hero. He left the bank of phones and went back to the car.

"What'd he say?" Clarke asked.

"We go in," Lewis said. He started the car.

The police radio keyed twice and then Hanlon's voice came on.

"Hey, Broadway, we have visitors over here on First."

Bosch grabbed up the radio.

"What have you got, First? Nothing showing on Broadway."

"We've got three white males going in on our side. Using a key. Looks like one is the man that was here earlier with you. Old guy. Plaid pants."

Avery. Bosch held the microphone up to his mouth and hesitated, not sure what to say. "Now what?" he said to Eleanor. Like Bosch, she was staring down the street at the vault room, but there was no sign of the visitors. She said nothing.

"Uh, First," Bosch said into the mike. "Did you see any vehicle?"

"None seen," Hanlon's voice came back. "They just walked out of the alley on our side. Must have parked there. Want us to take a look?"

"No, hold there a minute."

"They are now inside, no longer in visual contact. Advise, please."

He turned to Wish and raised his eyebrows. Who could it be?

"Ask for descriptions of the two with Avery," she said.

He did.

"White males," Hanlon began. "Number one and two in suits, worn and wrinkled. White shirts. Both early thirties. One with red hair, stocky build, five-eight, one-eighty. The other, dark-brown hair, thinner. I don't know, I'd say these guys were cops."

"Heckle and Jeckle?" Eleanor said.

"Lewis and Clarke. It's gotta be them."

"What are they doing in there?"

Bosch didn't know. Wish took the radio from him.

"First?"

The radio clicked.

"Reason to believe the two subjects in suits are Los Angeles police officers. Stand by."

"There they are," Bosch said, as three figures moved into the glare in the vault room. He opened the glove compartment and grabbed a pair of binoculars.

"What are they doing?" Wish asked as he focused.

"Avery is at the keypad next to the vault. I think he is opening the d.a.m.ned thing."

Through the binoculars, Bosch saw Avery step away from the computer board and move to the chrome wheel on the vault door. He saw Lewis turn slightly and glance up the street in the direction of the parking garage. Was there a slight trace of a smile there? Bosch thought he saw it. Then through the binoculars he saw Lewis draw his weapon from an underarm holster. Clarke did likewise and Avery started turning the wheel, the captain steering the t.i.tanic.

"Those dumb a.s.sholes, they are opening it!"

Bosch leapt out of the car and started running down the ramp. He unholstered his gun and held it up as he ran. He glanced along Wilshire and saw an opening in the sporadic traffic. He bounded across the street, Wish just a short distance behind him.

Bosch was still twenty-five yards away and knew he would be too late. Avery had stopped turning the vault wheel, and Bosch could see him pull back with all his weight. The door began slowly to move open. Bosch heard Eleanor's voice behind him.

"No!" she yelled. "Avery, no!"

But Bosch knew the double gla.s.s made the vault room silent. Avery couldn't hear her, and Lewis and Clarke wouldn't have stopped what they were doing even if they could hear.

What happened was like a movie to Bosch. An old movie on a TV set with the sound turned down. The slowly opening vault door, with its widening band of blackness inside, gave the picture an ethereal, almost underwater quality, a slow-motion inevitability. Bosch felt as if he were on a moving sidewalk going the wrong way, running but getting no closer. He kept his eyes on the vault door. The black margin opening wider. Then Lewis's body moved into Bosch's line of sight and toward the opening vault. Almost immediately, propelled by some unseen force, Lewis jerked backward. His hands flew up and his gun hit the ceiling and then fell soundlessly to the floor. As he backpedaled from the vault, his back and head ripped open and blood and brain spattered the gla.s.s wall behind him. As Lewis was hurled away from the vault door, Bosch could see the muzzle flash from the darkness inside. And then spiderwebs of cracks crazed the double gla.s.s as bullets struck silently. Lewis backstepped into a panel of the weakened gla.s.s and crashed through onto the sidewalk three feet below.

The vault was half open now and the shooter had freer range. The barrage of machine-gun fire turned toward Clarke, who stood unprotected, his mouth open in shock. Bosch could hear the shots now. He saw Clarke attempt to jump away from the line of fire. But it wasn't worth the effort. He, too, was thrown backward by the force of bullets impacting. His body slammed into Avery and both men fell to the polished marble floor in a heap.

The gunfire from the vault ended.

Bosch jumped through the opening where the wall of gla.s.s had been and slid on his chest across the marble and gla.s.s dust. In the same instant he looked into the vault and saw the blur of a man dropping through the floor. The movement made a swirl in the concrete dust and smoke that hung inside the vault. Like a magician, the man just disappeared in the mist. Then, from the darkness farther inside, a second man moved into the view framed by the doorway. He sidestepped to the hole, swinging an M-16 a.s.sault rifle in a covering, side-to-side sweep. Bosch recognized him as Art Franklin, one of the Charlie Company graduates.

When the black hole of the M-16 came his way, Bosch leveled his gun with both hands, wrists on the cold floor, and fired. Franklin fired at the same time. His shots went high, and Bosch heard more gla.s.s shattering behind him. Bosch fired two more rounds into the vault. He heard one ping off the steel door. The other caught Franklin in the upper right chest, knocking him to the floor on his back. But in one quick motion, the injured man rolled and went headfirst through the floor. Bosch kept his gun on the doorway to the vault, waiting for anybody else. But there was nothing, only the sound of Clarke and Avery, gagging and moaning on the floor to his left. Bosch stood up but kept the gun trained on the vault. Eleanor climbed into the room then, her Beretta in hand. In marksman crouches, Bosch and Wish approached the vault from either side of the door. There was a light control next to the computer keypad on the steel wall, right of the door. Bosch hit the switch and the interior vault was flooded with light. He nodded to her and Wish went in first. Then he followed. It was empty.

Bosch came out and quickly went to Clarke and Avery, who were still tangled on the floor. Avery was saying, "Dear G.o.d, Dear G.o.d." Clarke had both hands clamped to his own throat and was gasping for air, his face turning so red that for one bizarre moment it looked to Bosch as if he were strangling himself. He was lying across Avery's midsection and his blood was over both of them.

"Eleanor," Bosch shouted. "Get backup and ambulances. Tell SWAT that they're coming. At least two. Automatic weapons."