The Crossing

46

Ellis signaled to Long that the door was locked and that he should kick it in. Long tossed him the flashlight and then backed off a few feet. He raised his leg, aiming his heel at a spot just above the doorknob. He had done this a lot over the years and was good at it.

The door flew open and slammed back on the inside wall of the office, revealing a darkened room lit only by the dim light leaking around the edges of a window curtain on the far wall. Long was left in a vulnerable position as the momentum from his kick carried him into the office. Ellis moved in behind him, following his left flank and holding his gun and the flashlight in the standard crossed-wrists configuration.

“Police!” he called out. “Nobody move!”

The light fell on a desk that had been tipped onto its side to create a barricade. He put the aim of his weapon on the top edge of the desk, ready for Bosch or Schubert to show himself.

“Wait!”

The voice called out from behind the door to the left of the desk. Ellis recalibrated the aim of both his light and gun.

“It’s me!” Schubert called. “He told me he was a cop!”

The door opened and there stood Schubert, his hands raised.

“Don’t shoot. I thought he—”

Ellis opened fire, sending three quick shots toward Schubert. In his peripheral vision he saw Long on his right, turning and raising his gun to fire as well.

“No!”

The shout came from behind him and to the right. Ellis turned and saw Bosch moving laterally out from behind a folding partition that split the room. He had a gun up and opened fire as Ellis realized the overturned desk had been a decoy and Bosch had the superior position.

Ellis lurched forward to put Long’s larger body between Bosch and himself. He saw his partner react as the bullets struck him. The impacts redirected Long’s momentum into a spin. He was going to go down. Ellis shifted his weight and drove his shoulder into Long’s upper body, holding his partner up and swinging his own gun hand around his torso at the same time. Ellis fired wildly, shooting blindly in the direction he had last seen Bosch. He then reversed his footing and started back toward the door, dragging Long with him as a shield.

There was more gunfire, and Ellis felt the impacts through his partner’s body. At the doorway he dropped Long and fired two more shots in the direction of where Bosch’s fire had come from. He backed into the hallway and then turned and ran toward a door marked with an exit sign.

As he raced down the stairway to the garage, Ellis had one question bouncing through the impulses of his brain.

Fight or flight?

Was it all over or was there still a chance he could contain this, somehow turn it all on Bosch? Tell them Bosch was the one. Bosch opened fire. Bosch had some kind of crazy vendetta going. Bosch—

He knew he was kidding himself. It couldn’t work. If Bosch was still alive up there, then it wouldn’t work.

Ellis ran across the garage to his car. He could hear an approaching siren — Sheriff’s deputies responding to Bosch’s 911 call. He judged it to be two or three blocks away. He had to get out before they got here. That was priority one. After that, he knew it was time to fly.

He was prepared. He had known it might someday come to this and he had planned for it.