The Narrows

CHAPTER 34

What the hell happened out there?" Special Agent Randal Alpert's face was rigid and almost purple. He had been waiting for them in the hangar at Nellis when the helicopter landed. His political instincts had apparently told him not to go to the scene himself. At all costs he had to be able to distance himself from the blowback that would rise from the explosion in the desert and possibly reach all the way to Washington.

Rachel Walling and Cherie Dei stood in the huge hangar and braced for the onslaught. Rachel didn't answer his question because she thought it was only the opener on a tirade. She was reacting slowly, her head still a bit fuzzy from the blast.

"Agent Walling, I asked you a question!"

"He had rigged the trailer," Cherie Dei said. "He knew she-"

"I asked her, not you," Alpert barked. "I want Agent Walling to tell me exactly why she could not follow orders and how this whole thing has gotten completely fucked up beyond recognition."

Rachel raised her hands palms out as if to signify there was not a damn thing she could have done about what happened out there in the desert.

"We were going to wait for the ERT," she said. "As Agent Dei instructed. We were on the periphery of the location and that's when we realized it smelled like there was a body in there and then we thought maybe there could be someone alive in there. Somebody hurt."

"And how the hell did you get that idea simply because you smelled a dead body?"

"Bosch thought he heard something."

"Oh, here we go, the old cry for help routine."

"No, he did. But it was the wind, I guess. Out there it picks up. The windows were left open. It must have created a sound that he heard."

"And what about you? Did you hear it?"

"No. I didn't."

Alpert looked at Dei and then back at Rachel. She could feel his eyes burning through her. But she knew it was a good story and she wasn't going to blink. She and Bosch had worked it out. Bosch was beyond Alpert's reach. If she was acting on Bosch's alarm she could not be faulted either. Alpert could rant and rave but could do nothing more than that.

"You know what the problem with your story is? It's with your first word. We. You said we. There was no we. You were given an assignment of maintaining a cover on Bosch. Not joining him in the investigation. Not joining him in his car and driving up there. Not questioning witnesses together and entering that trailer together." "I understand that, but given the circumstances I decided it was in the best interest of the investigation to pool our knowledge and resources. Quite frankly, Agent Alpert, Bosch was the one who found that place. We wouldn't have what we have right now if not for him."

"Don't kid yourself, Agent Walling. We would have gotten there."

"I know that. But velocity was a factor. You said so yourself after the morning briefing. The director was going before the cameras. I wanted to push the case so that he would have as much information as possible."

"Well, forget about that now. Now we don't know what we have. He postponed the news conference and has given us until noon tomorrow to figure out what we have out there."

Cherie Dei cleared her voice and risked intruding again.

"That's impossible," she said. "That's a well-done crispy critter out there. They're using multiple bags to get it out of there. ID and cause of death are going to take weeks, if an ID and cause of death are even possible. Luckily, it appears that Agent Walling was able to obtain a DNA sampling from the body and that would speed things but we have no comparative evidence. We-"

"Maybe you weren't listening ten seconds ago," Alpert said, "but we don't have weeks. We've got less than twenty-four hours."

He turned away from them and put his hands on his hips, striking a pose that showed the burden that weighed upon him as the only intelligent and savvy agent left on the planet. "Then let us go back up there," Rachel said. "Maybe in the debris we'll find something that-"

"No!" Alpert yelled.

He spun back around to them.

"That won't be necessary, Agent Walling. You have done enough."

"I know Backus and I know the case. I should be out there."

"I decide who should be and shouldn't be out there. I want you to get back to the field office and start the paperwork on this fiasco. I want it on my desk by eight a.m. tomorrow. I want a detailed listing of everything you saw inside that trailer."

He waited to see if she would argue the order. Rachel remained silent and this seemed to please him.

"Now, I've got the media all over this. What do we put out that doesn't give away the store and won't upstage the director tomorrow?"

Dei shrugged.

"Nothing. Tell them the director will address it tomorrow, end of story."

"That won't work. We have to give them something."

"Don't give them Backus," Rachel said. "Tell them agents wanted to speak to a man named Thomas Walling about a missing persons case. But Walling had rigged his trailer and it exploded while agents were on the premises."

Alpert nodded. It sounded good to him.

"What about Bosch?"

"I'd leave him out of it. We don't have any control over him. If a reporter got to him he might lay the whole thing out." "And the body. Do we say it was Walling?"

"We say we don't know because we don't. ID is forthcoming, so on and so forth. That should be enough."

"If the reporters go to the brothels they'll get the whole story."

"No, they won't. We never told anyone the whole story."

"By the way, what happened to Bosch?"

Dei answered that one.

"I took his statement and released him. Last I saw he was driving back to Vegas."

"He'll keep quiet about this?"

Dei looked at Rachel and then back at Alpert.

"Put it this way, he isn't going to be looking to talk to anybody about it. And as long as we keep bis name out of it, there will be no reason for anyone to go looking for him."

Alpert nodded. He dug a hand into one of his pockets and came out with a cell phone.

"When we are finished here I have to call Washington. Gut reaction time: Was that Backus in that trailer?"

Rachel hesitated, not wanting to respond first.

"At this point there is no way to tell," Dei said. "If you are asking if you should tell the director that we got him, my answer right now is no, don't tell the director that. That could've been anybody in that trailer. For all we know it was an eleventh victim and we may never know who it was. Just somebody who went to one of the brothels and was intercepted by Backus."

Alpert looked at Rachel, expecting her take.

"The fuse," she said.

"What about it?" "It was long. It was like he wanted me to see the body but not get too close. But he also wanted me to get out of there."

"And?"

"On the body there was a black cowboy hat. I remember there was a man on my plane from Rapid City in a black cowboy hat."

"For chrissake, you were flying from South Dakota. Doesn't everybody wear cowboy hats there?"

"But he was there, with me. I think this whole thing was a setup. The note in the bar, the long fuse, the photos in the trailer and the black hat. He wanted me to get out of there in time to tell the world he was dead."

Alpert didn't respond. He looked down at the phone in his hands.

"There's too much we don't know yet, Randal," Dei offered.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket.

"Very well. Agent Dei, is your car here?"

"Yes."

"Take Agent Walling to the field office now."

They were dismissed, but not before Alpert looked at Rachel and threw one more grimace at her.

"Remember, Agent Walling, my desk by eight."

"You got it," Rachel said.