Dark Sacred Night

41

Bosch hugged his daughter as tightly as she hugged him. It made his cracked ribs sing with pain but he didn’t care.

He heard the door close behind him and looked over her head pressed against his shoulder at the slider to the deck. It was still open a couple of feet, the way the intruders had left it. There was black fingerprint dust on the glass. He was reminded that the house had been processed as a crime scene.

He brought his hands up to his daughter’s shoulders and pulled back from her so he could look into her eyes.

“Maddie, you were told not to come up here,” he said. “It’s not safe yet.”

“I had to come up,” she said. “I couldn’t just stay down there when I didn’t know if you were all right.”

“I told you. I’m fine.”

“Are you crying?”

“No. I mean — I have two cracked ribs and when you hug... you really hug.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know. But look at your face. You’re going to have a scar.”

She reached toward his face but he caught her hand and held it.

“I’m too old to worry about scars,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is you can’t stay here. I’m not even supposed to stay here. I was just coming for the Jeep and to get some of my own clothes.”

“I thought those looked weird,” she said, nodding toward the ill-fitting suit he was wearing.

“I borrowed clothes from another cop,” Bosch said.

“Where will you go?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet. I’m waiting to see if they pick up the guy who was behind all of this.”

“Well, when is that?”

“There’s no telling. They’re looking for him.”

“Why did this happen, Dad?”

“Maddie, look, I can’t tell you about case stuff. You know that.”

He saw a determined look enter her eyes. She was not going to let him stonewall her with case protocol.

“Okay,” he said, “all I can tell you is that I was working on a cold-case murder that was a gang-on-gang killing and I tracked down a guy who was a witness to part of the planning. That led to the suspect and somehow that suspect found out I was onto him. So he had his guys grab me and they pushed me around a little, but nothing really happened because I got rescued. And that’s it. End of story. Now you need to go back down to school.”

“I don’t want to,” she said.

“You have to. No choice. Please.”

“Okay. But you have to answer the phone. I came up because you don’t answer and I always think the worst.”

“The landline? I wasn’t even staying here. And I told you when we talked yesterday that my cell phone was smashed.”

“Well, I forgot.”

“I’ll get a new one first thing tomorrow and then I’ll take every call from you.”

“You’d better.”

“Promise. How’s your gas?”

“It’s fine. I filled up on my way.”

“Good. I want you to get going because it’s going to get dark soon. You should be south of downtown before it gets dark.”

“Okay, okay, I’m leaving. You know, most dads like their daughters to be around.”

“Now you’re just being a smart guy.”

She grabbed him and pulled him into another painful hug. She heard his breath catch and quickly detached.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I forgot!”

“It’s okay. It’s just sore. You can hug me anytime. You have the landline number. When you get to your house, call that and leave a message that you’re home and safe. I’ll be checking the line.”

“You have to clear it first. I already left about ten messages today.”

“Okay. Did you bring anything up with you?”

“Just myself.”

Bosch touched her arm and led her toward the front door. Outside they walked to the Volkswagen. Bosch nodded to the officer in the patrol car. He scanned up and down the street again to check if he could see what he wasn’t supposed to see. This time he even checked the sky before returning his attention to his daughter.

“How’s the car?” he asked.

“It’s good,” she said.

“A couple more up and backs and I’ll get the oil changed and the tires checked.”

“I can get all of that done.”

“You’re busy.”

“So are you.”

This time he hugged her despite the penalty to his ribs. He kissed the top of her head. His heart hurt worse than his ribs, but he wanted her far away from him right now.

“Remember to leave a message on the house line so I know you’re home,” he said.

“I will,” she promised.

“Love you.”

“Love you.”

Bosch watched her drive off and around the bend. He headed back into the house, nodding once more to the patrol officer with the thanklessly boring job in the car out front. At least he had a car to sit in and wasn’t posted at the front door.

When he got back inside, Bosch went directly to the landline in the kitchen and pulled a business card out of his pocket. He called Lieutenant Omar Cespedes, who ran the SIS squad working the Cortez case. He didn’t bother to identify himself when Cespedes picked up.

“You should have told me she came up to the house.”

“Bosch? Couldn’t do it. You know that. Besides, you got no phone. How am I supposed to tell you anything?”

“Bullshit,” Bosch said. “You were using her as bait.”

“That’s totally wrong, Harry. We wouldn’t do that, not with a cop’s kid. But if we had told you she was coming up, then you would have called her and turned her around. That happens and it’s a giveaway. We don’t do giveaways and you know that. We play it as it lays.”

Bosch calmed a bit as he came to understand the logic of the answer. Cespedes had a team watching Maddie — just as he had a team on Bosch and on the spot where Tranquillo Cortez had supposedly gone underground. If there was any sort of deviation in Maddie’s moves — like a U-turn on a trip up to L.A. — then it could tip someone else who might be watching or tailing her.

“Are we okay?” Cespedes said into the silence.

“Just let me know when she gets back safe to her house.”

“Not a problem. Check your mailbox on your way out.”

“Why?”

“We put a phone in there for you. So next time we can contact you when we need to. Don’t use it for anything else. It’s monitored.”

Bosch paused as he thought about that. He knew that every move the SIS made was monitored and analyzed. It came with the territory.

He changed the subject.

“What’s the latest with Cortez?”

“Still underground. We’re going to goose him after it gets dark, see what that gets us.”

“I want to be there.”

“Not going to happen, Bosch. Not how we work.”

“He was going to feed me to his dogs. I want to be there.”

“And that is exactly why you won’t be. You’re emotionally involved. We can’t have that cluttering things. You just keep that phone handy. I’ll call you when the time is right.”

Cespedes disconnected. Bosch was still bothered but not too much. He had a plan for crashing the SIS surveillance.

Bosch retrieved the messages on the landline and started clearing them one by one. They went back months and most were inconsequential. He rarely used the landline anymore and let the messages pile up over time. When he got to the messages his daughter had left yesterday, he couldn’t bring himself to delete them. Her emotions were raw, her fear for him real. He felt terrible about what she had just gone through but knew the messages were too pure to lose. The last one had no words. It was just Maddie’s breathing, hopeful that he would simply pick up and rescue her from her fears.

After hanging up he called his own cell number. The phone had been destroyed but he knew the number would still keep collecting messages. Nine had accumulated over the last thirty-six hours. Four were from his daughter and three were from Ballard, all left when his whereabouts were unknown. As with the landline messages, Bosch did not delete these. There was also one message from Cisco, saying he had nothing new to report on Elizabeth and asking Bosch whether he did. The last message, which had come in only an hour before, was from Mike Echevarria, and it was a call Bosch didn’t want to get.

Echevarria was an investigator with the Medical Examiner’s Office. Bosch had worked many homicide scenes with him and they were professionally, if not personally, close. Bosch had called him the night he was out looking for Elizabeth Clayton to see if she was in the morgue. She wasn’t but now Echevarria had left a message — just asking Bosch to call him back.

He right to the point when Bosch returned the call.

“Harry, this woman you’ve been looking for? I think we have her here under a Jane Doe.”

Bosch dropped his chin to his chest and leaned against the kitchen counter for support. He closed his eyes as he spoke.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Okay, let’s see,” Echevarria said. “Female, midfifties found in the Sinbad Motel on Sunset Boulevard two days ago. She’s got the R-I-P tattoo on her rear shoulder that you described with the name Daisy.”

Bosch nodded to himself. It was Elizabeth. Echevarria continued.

“Autopsy won’t be till Monday or Tuesday but all signs point to opiate overdose. According to the summary, she was found on the bed by the manager. She had paid for one night and he was going to shoo her out. Instead, he found her dead. Had her clothes on, body on top of the sheets. No foul play suspected. No homicide callout. Signed off on by a patrol sergeant and M.E. staff on scene.”

“She didn’t have ID?”

“No ID in the room — that’s why I didn’t connect it when you called. A lot of these people hide their stuff outside their rooms because they’re afraid of getting ripped off after they fix and pass out or whatever. She have a car?”

“No. What about pills? Any extra pills?”

“An empty prescription bottle. The prescription scratched off. They do that too. In case they get popped. It protects the doctor, because as soon as they hit the streets again, they’re going to see that same doctor. Creatures of habit.”

“Right.”

“Sorry, Harry. Sounds like you knew her.”

“I did. And it’s better knowing than not knowing, Mike.”

“Any chance I can get you down here to make a formal ID? Or I could shoot you a picture.”

Bosch thought about that.

“I’m not on a cell. How about I come in tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s good. I’m off Sundays but I’ll let them know.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Talk to you, Harry.”

Bosch hung up and walked through the house and out to the deck. He leaned on the railing and looked down at the freeway. He was not fully surprised by the news about Elizabeth but was still taken aback. He wondered whether the overdose was intentional. The empty pill bottle indicated she had taken everything she’d gotten.

The details made no difference either way to Bosch, because he considered her death a murder. It was a nine-year-old murder, and whoever had taken Daisy had also taken Elizabeth. Never mind that the killer had never met or even seen Elizabeth. He took everything that mattered away from her. He had killed her just as plainly as he had killed her daughter. Two for the price of one.

Bosch made a promise to himself. Elizabeth might be gone now but he would renew his efforts to put a name to the killer. He would find him and make him pay.

He went back into the house, closed the slider, and walked down the hall to his bedroom. He changed clothes, dressing in dark pants and shirt and adding an old army-green jacket. He threw some backup clothes and toiletries into a duffel bag because he didn’t know how long it would be until he could return.

He sat down on the bed and picked up the landline. He dialed Cisco Wojciechowski’s number from memory and got it right. The big man answered after four rings, a cautious tone in his voice, probably because he didn’t recognize the number.

“Yeah?”

“Cisco, it’s Bosch. I’ve got bad news on Elizabeth.”

“Tell me.”

“She’s didn’t make it. They found her in a motel room in Hollywood. Looks like an OD.”

“Shit...”

“Yeah.”

They stayed silent for a long moment before Cisco broke the silence.

“I thought she was stronger, you know? That week I spent with her — her breaking it off cold — I saw something. I thought she could go the distance.”

“Yeah, me too. But I guess you never know, right?”

“Right.”

After a few more minutes of small talk, Bosch thanked him for all he had done for Elizabeth and finished the call.

He went back down the hall to the closet next to the front door, where there was a steel gun box. His abductors had taken his firearm but Bosch had a spare weapon, a Smith & Wesson Combat Masterpiece, the six-shot revolver he had carried as a patrol officer almost forty years before. He had cleaned and maintained it regularly ever since. It was in a clip-on holster now and Bosch attached it to his belt under the jacket.

The keys to the house and Cherokee were on the kitchen counter where Bosch had left them two nights before. He exited the house through the front door and pulled the phone Cespedes had left for him out of the mailbox. He took another look around the street, checking for the surveillance, but saw nothing beyond the marked car from North Hollywood Division. He went into the carport, where the Cherokee awaited.

As he drove down the hill he thought about Elizabeth and her fatal sadness. He realized that the long wait for justice had been too long and not enough to keep her alive. And that his effort to help her ultimately hurt her. Getting her sober only made the pain sharper and less bearable. Was he just as guilty as the unnamed killer?

Bosch knew he would carry that question for a long time.

42

Cespedes had purposely not given him the exact location of the surveillance set up on Tranquillo Cortez’s hideout in Panorama City but Bosch knew enough from sitting in SFPD briefings to be able to find the neighborhoods considered to be SanFer strongholds in the area. And with his plan, a general knowledge was all that was needed. He dropped down out of the hills and headed north into the Valley, traveling through Van Nuys and up into Panorama City.

The light was leaving the sky and the streetlights were coming on. He passed tent communities and drab industrial buildings colored with graffiti. When he got to Roscoe Boulevard he turned east, and it wasn’t long before the SIS phone was buzzing in his pocket. He didn’t take the first or second call. He turned into a large apartment complex where there were no rules about storing furniture and refrigerators on the balconies. He drove the length of the parking lot before turning around and driving back through. He saw young Latino men watching from a few of the balconies.

The third time the phone buzzed he took the call.

“Bosch, what the fuck are you doing?” Cespedes demanded.

“Hey, Speedy,” Bosch said, using the nickname he had heard SIS officers use for their boss. “Just taking a drive. What’s up?”

“Are you trying to fuck this up?”

“I don’t know. Am I?”

“You need to get out of here and go home.”

“No, I need to get in the car with you. If tonight’s the night, I want to be there.”

“What are you talking about, tonight being the night?”

“You slipped. You said you were going to goose Cortez tonight. I want in.”

“Are you nuts? I told you we don’t do things that way. Christ, you’re not even LAPD anymore, Bosch.”

“You could make up a reason to have me. I could be the spotter. I know what Cortez looks like.”

“That would never wash. You’re not part of this operation and you’re compromising it.”

“Then I guess I’ll just continue my one-man search for Cortez. Good luck with yours.”

Bosch disconnected and pulled back out onto Roscoe. He hit the turn signal as soon as he came up on another apartment complex. His phone buzzed again before he got to it. He took the call.

“Don’t turn in there,” Cespedes said.

“You sure?” Bosch asked. “Looks like the kind of place where Cortez might hide out.”

“Bosch, keep going. There’s a gas station on the right down at Woodman. I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay, but don’t keep me hanging.”

This time it was Cespedes who disconnected.

Bosch did as instructed and kept driving. At Woodman Avenue he pulled into a gas station and parked by a broken air pump at the edge of the property. He kept the car running and waited.

After three minutes a black Mustang hardtop with smoked windows streaked into the station and pulled in next to Bosch’s car. The passenger-side window lowered and Bosch saw Cespedes behind the wheel. He had dark skin and a gray crew cut. The angular cut to his jaw seemed perfect for a man who led a team of hard chargers and sharpshooters.

“Hey, Speedy,” Bosch said.

“Hey, asshole,” Cespedes said. “You know you are fucking up a solid operation here.”

“Doesn’t have to be that way. Am I riding with you or not?”

“Get in.”

Bosch exited the Jeep and locked it. He then got into the Mustang. It was a tight squeeze because of an open laptop sitting on a swivel mount attached to the dash. The screen was angled toward Cespedes, but once Bosch was in his seat, he turned the mount so he could see the screen. It was quartered into four camera views of Roscoe Boulevard and an apartment building. Bosch recognized the complex he had been about to turn into when Cespedes agreed to allow Harry to ride with him.

“You got cameras on your cars?” Bosch asked. “I guess I was getting close.”

He pointed at the apartment building on one of the camera views. Cespedes abruptly turned the screen back toward himself.

“Don’t touch,” he ordered.

Bosch raised his hands in acknowledgment.

“Put on your seatbelt,” Cespedes added. “You don’t leave this car unless I tell you to. Got that?”

“Got it,” Bosch said.

Cespedes dropped the Mustang into reverse and pulled out of the slot next to the Jeep. The car then shot forward and back toward Roscoe.

Two blocks down, he pulled to the curb in a spot where there was a view of the apartment complex that the cameras on the other cars were focused on. Cespedes canted his head back and spoke toward the ceiling of the car.

“Sierra two, show me back at OP one.”

Bosch knew there was a microphone behind the visor, probably activated with a foot switch on the floor. Standard surveillance gear. A series of clicks from other cars followed. Cespedes had observation-point one. The others had views from other angles on the apartment complex.

Cespedes turned to Bosch.

“Now we wait,” he said.

Bosch understood why they were waiting for darkness. The night always favored the followers. Cars became headlights, unrecognizable in the rearview mirror. Drivers became silhouettes.

“How are you going to goose him into moving?” Bosch asked.

Cespedes was quiet a moment and Bosch knew he was deciding how much to tell Bosch. The SIS was a very insular group within the department. Once officers transferred in, they never transferred out. They cut off relationships and contact with old partners and friends in the department. In the fifty-year history of the unit, there had only been one woman ever assigned to the team.

“Foothill gangs has a deep-cover snitch,” Cespedes said. “He got us the cell number of a shot caller on the same level as Cortez. We hijacked the cell and sent Cortez a message about a must-attend meet regarding you, Bosch, at Hansen Dam. We’re hoping that does the trick.”

Cespedes had just described at least two things that were compromising, if not outright against department protocol, not to mention illegal — if hijacking the phone had been done without a warrant. He was attempting to draw Bosch in and make him complicit in what might go down later. If Bosch didn’t object now, he couldn’t claim innocence afterward.

And that was all right with him.

“Why Hansen Dam?” he asked.

“The truth?” Cespedes said. “No cameras up there.”

He turned to look at Bosch. It was another moment where Bosch could either raise a flag or go along.

“Good plan,” he said, putting himself all in.

The SIS held a unique position in the LAPD. Often investigated by outside agencies ranging from the FBI to the media to civil rights groups, often sued by the families of the suspects shot, routinely labeled a “death squad” by outraged attorneys, the unit enjoyed a completely opposite reputation within the rank and file of the department. Infrequent openings in the unit brought hundreds of applications, including from those willing to drop pay grades just to get in. The reason was that, more so than any other unit, this was seen as true police work. The SIS took violent offenders off the board. Whether they were taken alive didn’t matter. They took out shooters, rapists, serial killers. The ripple effect of crimes not committed because of SIS captures and kills was unquantifiable but huge. And there wasn’t a cop on the force who wouldn’t want to be part of that. Never mind the outside critics, the investigations, and the lawsuits. This was to serve and protect in its rawest form.

Bosch felt no choice but to go all in. Tranquillo Cortez had not played by the rules. He’d had his men take Bosch from his home, from the place his daughter often slept. There can be no greater crime against a police officer than to threaten his family. You do that, and all bets are off. So when Bosch called it a good plan, he meant it, and he hoped that one way or another the threat from Tranquillo Cortez would be over before midnight.

43

At 8:10 p.m., the Mustang’s radio came alive with one call after another reporting that the target — Tranquillo Cortez — had been spotted and was on the move. Interpreting the radio code used by the SIS officers, Bosch deduced that Cortez was with an unidentified bodyguard/driver and had gotten into a white Chrysler 300 with a lowered suspension. The car had illegally smoked windows that made it impossible to identify those behind the glass.

The Chrysler was eastbound on Roscoe, and Cespedes let the entourage of SIS vehicles go by before putting the Mustang in play. Still, he hung back to see if Cortez had initiated any countersurveillance techniques such as a long-lead follow car. When he was satisfied there was none, he pulled into traffic to catch up to the others. His role as commander of the unit was to hang behind and be ready to move up into one of the corners of the floating-box surveillance surrounding the Chrysler should one of the four cars rotating positions be made by the suspect or otherwise taken out of commission.

Bosch heard over the radio that the Chrysler had turned north on Branford, which would lead directly into the park and golf course at Hansen Dam. Bosch listened as units identified themselves over the radio as Advance, Backdoor, and Outrigger One and Two and kept a running report on the moving surveillance. The voices were calm and slow, as if they were describing a golf match on TV.

“Where are we going in the park?” Bosch asked.

“The golf course parking lot,” Cespedes said. “Should be empty right about now. Can’t play golf in the dark, right?”

Bosch had asked the question as an attempt to get Cespedes talking about the plan. They were about a mile from the park and Bosch didn’t know what the tactical strategy would be once they reached the takedown spot.

“It’s going to come down to a choice,” Cespedes said. “It always does.”

“What do you mean?” Bosch asked. “What choice?”

“To live or die. The plan is always about containment first. We will put him into a situation where he knows he isn’t getting out of the box. He then has a choice. Go out on his feet or on his back. It’s amazing how many times these guys make the wrong choice.”

Bosch just nodded.

“This is the guy who had you abducted,” Cespedes said. “From the place your daughter calls home. Then he was going to torture you and feed your body to his dogs.”

“That’s right,” Bosch said.

“Sounds like a movie I saw once.”

“I heard somebody say that. I missed it.”

“Yeah, well, we need to teach these people that the movies aren’t real life. Bring a little truth to the situation, you know what I mean?”

“I do.”

“How’s the case against him going?”

“Nowhere. We got a guy in a coma — a cop. If he comes out of it and talks, then maybe we make a case.”

“But you never saw Cortez, right? When you were in the cage.”

“No.”

“So in other words, you don’t have shit. If we take him in on this bullshit child support thing, you get a shot at talking to him and you gotta hope that, first, he doesn’t lawyer up and, second, he says the wrong thing and craps on himself.”

“That’s about right, yeah.”

“Well, then, let’s hope he makes the wrong choice tonight.”

The radio came alive a few moments later with reports that the Chrysler carrying Cortez was entering the Hansen Dam Recreation Area. Two of the surveillance cars from the floating box had entered ahead and were in layup positions waiting for the Chrysler to enter the felony- stop trap.

“We got a decoy car in the lot,” Cespedes told Bosch. “A Ford pickup like the guy whose phone we used drives. Cortez goes to it, we move in.”

Bosch nodded. By leaning into the center console of the Mustang he was able to get an angle on the laptop screen and watch the four dash cameras from the surveillance cars. He noticed that two cars were moving in traffic, not having entered the park yet, and two were static. The view on these was now set to infrared. One angle was simply down a driveway next to a building that Bosch assumed was the golf course club house. The other looked across a parking lot at a pickup truck backed into a space at the far end of the lot.

“Is there a delay on these screens?” he asked.

“About two and a half seconds,” Cespedes said.

“Recording?”

“Recording.”

The radio went from an overlapping of voices reporting the movement of the target to complete silence for nearly thirty seconds before the trap was sprung.

Soon Bosch saw the Chrysler enter the parking lot in one of the static camera angles. But it stopped dead before approaching the pickup.

“What’s he doing?” Bosch asked.

“Just being cautious,” Cespedes said.

Cespedes then went on the radio.

“Give him a wink, Jimmy.”

“Roger that.”

On the dashcam from the follow car in the lot, the pickup’s headlights blinked twice. Bosch noticed that all four of the camera views were static now and on infrared.

“You got a guy in the pickup?” Bosch said, stating the obvious.

Cespedes held up a hand for silence. Now was not the time to give Bosch the play-by-play. He went back on the radio.

“Now bail, Jimmy. Get out of there.”

The Chrysler started moving toward the pickup. Bosch saw no indication that anyone had gotten out of the Ford. Cespedes timed the Chrysler’s approach, factored in the delay on the cameras, and then stomped on the radio transmit button on the floor of the car.

“Now! All units — go!”

All four camera views started moving and closing in. Far behind, Cespedes picked up speed and the Mustang entered the park. The car bounced on the uneven roadway as they sped toward the golf course but Bosch couldn’t take his eyes off the laptop screen. He gripped his armrest with one hand and the laptop mount with the other in an effort to hold it steady and watch the action as it played out.

The four surveillance cars closed in on the Chrysler as it pulled into a slot next to the pickup. Bosch could see as the cameras got closer that the truck was backed up to an ivy-draped wall. There would be no escape that way.

The four follow cars moved in, their dashcams revealing that they had a classic spread formation on the Chrysler. It was trapped with its nose against a wall and four cars with armed officers fanned behind it across a 120-degree arc.

The camera angles overlapped and Bosch could see SIS officers using the open doors of their cars as cover and pointing weapons at the Chrysler. There was no sound but Bosch knew they were yelling and demanding the surrender of the men inside.

Bosch could see two officers in combat stances moving to the left and right of the SIS cars to further contain the Chrysler but still keep an angle that would clear them of any cross fire.

For ten seconds, there was nothing. No movement from the Chrysler. Its smoked windows were up but the high-powered beams of the SIS cars cut through and Bosch could make out the silhouettes of the two men inside.

The Mustang entered the parking lot and sped toward the confrontation. Bosch glanced up to get his bearings but then looked back down at the camera screens. It was then that the front doors of the Chrysler opened simultaneously.

Bosch first saw the hands of the passenger come out of the car, held high and open as Tranquillo Cortez emerged to surrender. He was wearing the same flat-brimmed Dodgers hat he had worn on the day they met.

The driver followed but held only his left hand up as he emerged.

The Mustang had pulled behind one of the follow cars and was now close enough for Bosch to hear the tense voices from the officers. He looked over the laptop to watch the action play live.

“Hands!”

“Both hands!”

“Hands up!”

And then the warning turned to alarm.

“Gun! Gun!”

Bosch could only see the driver’s head and shoulders because one of the SIS cars was between them. He looked down at the laptop screen and to the camera angle showing the driver’s side of the Chrysler. The driver, a stocky man who had to twist his body to step out of the car, was emerging, turning and bringing his right arm up in a swinging motion. When his arm cleared his body, Bosch saw the gun.

A tremendous volley of shots seemed to come from all around him.

Tranquillo Cortez paid for his bodyguard’s bravado and suicidal decision to wield the gun. Cortez was centered in the killing ground and was fair game. Both men were hit repeatedly as fire continued from the eight shooters fanned around them. The Chrysler’s windows shattered and the men on either side of it went down. Cortez had actually turned, possibly seeking cover, and went face-first back into the car. His body then fell out, and he was left leaning against the door sill, head down. His hat never came off.

Only when the gunfire stopped did Bosch look back up from the laptop screen. Through an angle between the open doors of two of the follow cars, he could see Cortez, the front of his white shirt soaked in blood. His head jerked as his body seized. For the moment, he was still alive.

“Stay in the car, Bosch,” Cespedes yelled.

He jumped out and ran between two of the cars and through the heavy smoke of the gunfire. He followed two of his men, who were cautiously approaching the Chrysler with guns trained on the men on the ground. Bosch went back to the laptop, turning it fully toward him now because the view was better.

There was a gun on the ground next to the bodyguard’s body. One of the SIS officers kicked it away and then leaned down to check the body for a pulse. He made a hand signal, a flat line, indicating the bodyguard was dead.

Cortez was pulled down flat on the ground and an officer knelt next to him. Even on the infrared screen, it was clear he was breathing. Cespedes was on the screen now, already talking on a cell phone. Bosch assumed he was calling for rescue ambulances or making notifications to command staff.

Bosch wanted to get out of the Mustang and enter the scene, but he remained as ordered in the car. If it appeared that Cespedes had forgotten him, he would get out. He saw Cespedes disconnect from a call and make another.

Bosch looked at the screen and saw the same action again, remembering that the feed to the laptop was delayed. He looked at the keyboard, located the left arrow, and pressed it. The video on the screen started rewinding. Bosch held his finger on the button until the images reversed past the shooting and the two SanFers were still in the white Chrysler.

He replayed the fatal confrontation, tapping the reverse button intermittently to slow down the playback or to entirely replay moments. He wasn’t sure how to set the playback to slow motion. He focused on the camera angle on the upper-left corner of the screen. It was an almost straight-on view of the driver emerging from the car with one hand up.

He focused on the driver’s right arm as it moved out of the shadows of the car. As the arm came up from behind his torso, Bosch could see the gun. But the hand was not grasping it by the grip. The driver was holding the weapon but it was not in a ready-fire grip.

Then Bosch saw an impact on the car as a bullet hit the door frame and fragmented. The first shot. It had come before the gun could have been clearly seen and the driver’s intentions made apparent. Bosch took his finger off the keyboard and let the rest of the shooting play out. He looked up through the windshield and saw Cespedes walking toward the Mustang. He quickly put his finger on the forward arrow and sped the playback, catching it up to real time just as the SIS boss opened the passenger-side door.

Cespedes leaned in.

“He’s circling but conscious if you want to say anything to him,” he said.

“Okay,” Bosch said. “Yeah.”

Cespedes backed away and Bosch got out. They walked between two of the SIS cars and to the passenger side of the Chrysler. A heavy pall of smoke still hung in the air.

Cortez’s eyes were open and looked fearful. Blood was on his tongue and lips and Bosch knew his lungs had likely been riddled with fragmented lead. Harry was shocked by how young he looked. The man who had sneered and postured in the lavandería parking lot a few days before was gone. Cortez now looked like a scared boy in a baseball cap.

Bosch knew it was not the time to say anything, to play the victor or to taunt him with vengeful words.

He said nothing.

Cortez said nothing as well. He locked eyes with Bosch and then moved his arm and reached a bloody hand to the cuff of Bosch’s pants. He grabbed hold of it as though he might be able to hang on to life and keep from being pulled into the waiting darkness.

But after a few seconds he lost his strength. He let go, then closed his eyes and died.