The Night Fire

51

Ballard came out of the elevator and immediately saw the uniformed police officer standing in a waiting area to the left. She walked directly to him, pulling her jacket back to show her badge. She saw his name was French.

“I’m looking for a guy — sixties, mustache, looks like a cop,” she said.

“There was a guy like that but he had a legit ID,” French said.

“Where is he?”

French pointed.

“He went around the stairs,” he said.

“Okay,” Ballard said.

She walked to the reception desk, where a young man was playing solitaire on his phone.

“Where is Clayton Manley’s office?”

“You go around the stairs and it’s the last office at the end of the hall past Mr. Michaelson’s and Mr. Mitchell’s offices. I can take you back.”

“No, you stay here. I’ll find it.”

Ballard moved quickly toward the curving staircase and the hall. As she entered the passageway she saw the first two doors on the left closed, but the last door was open and she heard voices. One belonged to a woman and the other, unmistakably, to Harry Bosch.

She quietly drew her weapon and held it in two hands in front of her as she moved down the hallway and closer to the open door. She strained to listen.

“That was his mistake,” the woman said.

“We purged his computer and he sent an e-mail to the firm saying goodbye. Once we were up there, the rest was easy. Just like this.”

Ballard came to the door and saw a woman standing with her back to her. Dark hair, dark clothes. She thought: Black Widow. Beyond her was a man facedown on the floor. Gray hair but not like Bosch’s.

The woman was raising a weapon with a sound suppressor attached.

“You move, you die,” Ballard said.

The woman froze, her arm straight but the weapon only halfway up to firing position.

“Drop the weapon and let me see both hands,” Ballard ordered. “Now!”

The woman remained frozen and Ballard knew she was going to have to shoot her.

“Last chance. Drop... the... weapon.”

Ballard raised her arms slightly so she could sight down the barrel of her pistol. She would cut the woman’s cords with a shot to the back of the neck.

The woman opened her gun hand and the weight of the barrel with the suppressor dropped the muzzle downward as the handle came up.

“I’ve got a hair trigger on this,” she said. “I drop it, it could go off. I’m going to lower it to the ground.”

“Slowly,” Ballard said. “Harry?”

“I’m here,” Bosch said from the right.

“You carrying?”

“Have it on her right now.”

“Good.”

The woman in the room started to bend her knees and flex down. Ballard followed her with the aim of her gun, holding her breath the whole time until the weapon was dropped the last few inches.

“All right, stand up,” Ballard ordered. “Move to the window and put your palms flat on the glass.”

The woman did as instructed, stepping to the floor-to-ceiling glass panel and then raising and placing her hands against it.

“You got her?” Ballard asked.

“I’ve got her,” Bosch said.

He raised his aim to assure Ballard he had the woman firmly in his sights. Ballard holstered her weapon and moved in to search the woman.

“Do you have any other weapons on you?”

“Just the one on the floor.”

“I’m going to search you now. If I find another weapon on you it’s going to be a problem.”

“You won’t.”

Ballard moved forward and used her foot to push the woman’s legs apart. She then began a pat-down that started low with the legs before moving up.

“Do you have to do that?” the woman asked.

“With you, yes,” Ballard said. “And I bet you like it.”

“Part of the job.”

Finished with the search, Ballard put her hand on the woman’s back to hold her in place. She then pulled her cuffs off her belt.

“Okay, one at a time,” she said. “I want you to bring your hand down from the glass and behind your back. Your right first.”

Ballard reached up and grabbed the right wrist as it was coming down and started bringing it behind the Black Widow’s back. But the woman turned as if being pivoted by Ballard. Ballard tried to stop it.

“No—”

Ballard saw it before she felt it. In the woman’s hand was an open folding knife with a blade curved like a horn. All matte black except for the edge of the blade that had been sharpened to a shine. The woman brought it up and into Ballard’s left armpit and then put her other arm around her neck in a V hold. She was now behind Ballard and using her as a shield. Ballard saw Bosch holding his weapon, looking for a clean shot that wasn’t there.

“I sliced a bleeder under her arm,” the woman said. “She’s got three minutes and she’ll bleed out. You put the gun down. I walk out of here. She lives.”

“Take the shot, Harry,” Ballard said.

The woman adjusted herself behind Ballard to improve her shielding. Ballard could feel her breath on the back of her neck. She could feel blood running over her ribs and down her side.

“Two and a half minutes,” the woman said.

“There’s a cop out front,” Bosch said.

“And there’s an exit to the stairs in the copy room. We’re almost at two minutes.”

Bosch remembered seeing the emergency exit door. He signaled with the gun toward the door.

“Go,” he said.

“Gun,” the woman said.

Bosch put his gun down on the desk.

“Harry, no,” Ballard managed to say in a whisper.

She then felt herself being dragged toward the office door.

“Get back against the bookshelf,” the woman ordered.

Bosch raised his hands and moved back. Ballard was dragged toward the door.

“You’re going to have a choice now,” the woman said. “Save her or go after me.”

Ballard felt the woman’s grip release and she fell back against the doorframe and then slid down to a sitting position.

Bosch came quickly around the desk to her. His hands immediately went inside her jacket to her belt and pulled off the radio. He knew how to use it.

“Officer down! Need immediate medical on sixteenth floor of California Plaza West. Office of Clayton Manley. Repeat, officer down. Officer stabbed, losing blood, needs immediate medical.”

He put the rover on the floor and then opened Ballard’s jacket to get a look at the knife wound.

“Harry... I’m okay, go after her.”

“I’m going to lay you on your right side so the wound is on the high side. You’re going to be all right. I’ll compress the wound.”

“No, go.”

Bosch ignored her. As he gently put her down on her side he heard footsteps running in the hallway. Officer French appeared in the doorway.

“French,” Bosch yelled. “Get the EMTs. There’s a team down in the plaza. Get them up here, now. Then put out a broadcast. A woman, thirties, white, black hair, all black clothing, armed and dangerous. She went into the exit stairs. She’s trying to get out of the building.”

French didn’t move. He seemed frozen by what he was seeing.

“Go!” Bosch yelled.

French disappeared. Ballard looked up from the floor to Bosch. She felt her clock running out. For some reason, she smiled. She barely heard Bosch talking to her.

“Stay with me, Renée. I’m going to use your arm to compress the wound. It’s gonna hurt.”

Holding her by the elbow, he shifted her arm up so that he could hold her biceps down on the wound. It didn’t hurt at all and that made her smile.

“Harry...”

“Don’t talk. Don’t waste your energy. Just stay with me, Renée. Stay with me.”