Michael Connelly (96 page)

“This is how it was found when the CLETs came in. What do you think? These stiffs don’t look too old. I think we got here
just a little late for the show, huh?”

Bosch studied the scene for a few moments.

“Hard to say. Looks like the end of a business deal. Maybe Grena got greedy. Asked for more than he deserved. Maybe he was
making some kind of play with Zorrillo, some kind of scam, and it went to shit. I saw him a few hours ago at the bullfight.”

“Yeah, what did he say? That he was heading over to the pope’s for a shot?”

Corvo didn’t laugh and neither did Bosch.

“No, he just told me to get out of town.”

“So, who shot him?”

“Looks like a forty-five to me. Just guessing. That would make Arpis over here a likely candidate.”

“Then who shot Arpis?”

“Got me. But if I was guessing, it looks like Zorrillo or whoever was behind the desk pulls a gun out of the drawer there
and starts popping him right here in front of the desk. He goes backwards and over the couch.”

“Why would he shoot him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Zorrillo didn’t like what he did to Grena. Maybe Zorrillo was starting to get scared of him. Maybe Arpis
made the same play Grena did. Could’ve been a lot of things. We’ll never know. I thought Ramos said it was three bodies.”

“Across the hall.”

Bosch crossed the hall into a long and wide living room. It had deep-pile, white shag carpet and a white piano. There was
a painting of Elvis on the wall above a white leather couch. The rug was stained with blood from the third man, who was lying
in front of the couch. It was Dance. Bosch recognized him from the mug shot even with the bullet wound in his forehead and
the blond hair now dyed black. The practiced sulk had been replaced on his face with a look of wonder. His eyes were open
and almost seemed to be looking up at the hole in his forehead.

Corvo walked in behind him. “What do you think?”

“I think it looks like the pope had to get out of here in a hurry. And he didn’t want to leave these three behind to talk
about it. …Shit, I don’t know, Corvo.”

Corvo raised the hand-held radio to his mouth.

“Search teams,” he said. “Status.”

“Search Leader here. We’ve got the underground lab. Entrance is through the bunker structure. It’s major. We have product
sitting in the drying pans. Multiweight. We’re home. We’re gold.”

“What about the priority suspect?”

“Negative at this time. No suspects in the lab.”

“Shit,” Corvo said after signing off. He rubbed the edge of the Motorola against the scar on his cheek as he thought about
what to do next.

“The Jeep,” Bosch said. “We have to go after it.”

“If he’s heading to EnviroBreed, the militia is there waiting. At the moment, I can’t cut people loose to go running around
the ranch. It’s six thousand fucking acres.”

“I’ll go.”

“Wait a minute, Bosch. This is not your action.”

“Fuck it, Corvo. I’m going.”

Bosch came out of the house looking in the dim light for Aguila and finally saw him standing near the prisoners and the militia.
Bosch realized he probably felt more like an outsider here than Harry did himself.

“I am going after the Jeep we saw. I think it was Zorrillo.”

“I am ready,” the Mexican said.

Before they could move Corvo came running up. But it was not to stop them.

“Bosch, I’ve got Ramos in the chopper. It’s all I can spare.”

The silence that followed was punctuated by the sound from the other side of the hacienda of the helicopter’s rotor beginning
to turn.

“Go!” Corvo yelled. “Or he’ll go without you.”

They ran around the building and climbed back into their spots in the Lynx. Ramos was in the cockpit with the pilot. The craft
abruptly lifted off and Bosch forgot about the seatbelt. He was too busy putting on his helmet and night-vision equipment.

There was nothing in the scope yet. No Jeep. No runner. They were heading southwest from the ranch’s population center. As
he watched the yellow land go by in the night-vision lenses, Harry realized he still hadn’t informed Aguila of his captain’s
demise. When we are done here, he decided.

In two minutes they came upon the Jeep. It was parked in a copse of eucalyptus trees and tall brush. A tumbleweed as big as
a truck had blown up against it or been put up against it as a meager disguise. The vehicle was about fifty yards from the
corrals and barn. The pilot put on the spots and the Lynx began circling. There was no sign of the driver, the runner. Zorrillo.
Looking between the front seats, Bosch saw Ramos give the pilot the thumbs down sign and the craft began its descent. The
lights were cut off and until Harry’s eyes adjusted, it felt like they were dropping through the depths of a black hole.

He finally felt the impact of the ground and his muscles relaxed slightly. He heard the engine cut and there was just the
chirping and whupping sound of the free-turning rotor winding down. Through the window Bosch could see the western side of
the barn. There were no doors or windows on this exposure and he was thinking that they could approach with reasonable cover
when he heard Ramos yell.

“What the — hold on!”

There was a hard impact and the helicopter lurched violently and began sliding. Bosch looked out his window and could only
see that they were being pushed sideways. The Jeep. Someone had been hidden in the Jeep. The Lynx’s landing rails finally
caught on something in the earth and the craft tipped over. Bosch covered his face and ducked when he saw the still spinning
rotor start biting into the ground and splintering. Then he felt Aguila’s weight crash down on him and heard yelling in the
cockpit that he could not decipher.

The helicopter rocked in this position for only a few seconds before there was another loud impact, this time from the front.
Bosch heard tearing metal and shattering glass and gunfire.

Then it was gone. Bosch could feel the vibration in the ground dissipating as the Jeep sped away.

“I think I got him!” Ramos yelled. “Did you see that?”

All Bosch could think of was their vulnerability. The next hit would probably be from behind where they could not see to shoot.
He tried to reach his Smith but his arms were trapped under Aguila. The Mexican detective finally began to crawl off him and
they both tentatively moved into crouches in the now sideways compartment. Bosch reached up and tried the door, which was
now above them. It slid about halfway open before catching on something, a torn piece of metal. They took off their helmets
and Bosch went out first. Then Aguila handed him the bullet-proof vests. Bosch didn’t know why but took them. Aguila followed
him out.

The smell of fuel was in the air. They moved to the crushed front of the helicopter where Ramos, gun in one hand, was trying
to slide through the hole where the front window used to be.

“Help him,” Bosch said. “I’ll cover.”

He pulled his gun and turned in a full circle but saw no one. Then he saw the Jeep, parked where he had seen it from the air,
the tumbleweed still pressed against it. This made no sense to Bosch. Unless —

“The pilot is trapped,” Aguila said.

Harry looked into the cockpit. Ramos was shining a flashlight on the pilot, whose blond mustache was inked with blood. There
was a deep slash on the bridge of his nose. His eyes were wide and Bosch could see the flight control apparatus was crushed
in on his legs.

“Where’s the radio?” Bosch said. “We’ve got to get help out here.”

Ramos stuck his upper body back through the cockpit window and came back out with the hand-held radio.

“Corvo, Corvo, come up, we’ve got an emergency here.” While waiting for a response, Ramos said to Bosch, “Do you believe this
shit? That fucking monster comes outta nowhere. I didn’t know what the —”

“What’s happening?” Corvo’s voice came back on the radio.

“We’ve got a situation here. We need a medevac out here. Tools. The Lynx is wrecked. Corcoran is pinned inside. Has injuries.”

“— cation of the crash?”

“It’s not a crash, man. A goddamn bull attacked it on the ground. It’s wrecked and we can’t get Corcoran out. Our location
is one hundred yards northeast of the breeding center, the barn.”

“Stay there. Help’s on the way.”

Ramos clipped the radio to his belt, held the flashlight under his arm and reloaded his handgun.

“Let’s each take a side of a triangle, the chopper in the middle and watch for this thing. I know I hit it but it didn’t show
a thing.”

“No,” Bosch said. “Ramos, you and Aguila take sides of it and wait for help. I’m going to clear the barn. Zorrillo’s getting
—”

“No, no, no, we don’t do it like that, Bosch. You aren’t calling any of the shots here. We wait here and when help —”

He stopped in midsentence and made a full turn. Then Bosch realized he heard it, too. Or, rather, felt it. A rhythmic vibration
in the ground, growing stronger. It was impossible to place the direction. He watched Ramos turn in circles with the flashlight.
He heard Aguila say, “El Temblar.”

“What?” Ramos yelled. “What?”

And then the bull appeared at the edge of vision. A huge black beast, it came at them undeterred by their number. This was
his turf to defend. The bull seemed to Bosch in that moment to have come from within the darkness, an apparition of death,
its head down and jagged horns up. It was less than thirty feet away when it locked on a specific target. Bosch.

In one hand he held the Smith. In the other the vest, with the word
POLICE
on it in reflective yellow tape. In the seconds he had left he realized the tape had caught the beast’s attention and singled
him out. He also came to the conclusion that his gun was useless. He could not fell the animal with bullets. It was too big
and powerful. It would take a perfect shot on a moving target. Wounding it, as Ramos had, would not stop it.

He dropped the gun and held the vest up.

Bosch heard yelling and shooting from his right side. It was Ramos. But the bull stayed on him. As it came closer he swept
the vest to his right, its yellow letters catching the light of the moon. He let it go as the animal closed in. The bull,
like a blur of black in darkness, hit the vest before it left his hand. Bosch tried to jump out of the way but one of the
massive shoulders of the animal brushed him and sent him tumbling.

From the ground he looked up to see the animal cut to its left like a gifted athlete and close in on Ramos. The agent was
still firing and Bosch could see the reflection of the moon off the shells as they were ejected from his gun. But the bullets
did not stop the beast’s charge. They did not even slow it. Bosch heard the gun’s ejector go dry and Ramos was pulling the
trigger on an empty chamber. His last cry was unintelligible. The bull hit him low in the legs and then raised its brutish
and bloodied neck up, ejecting him into the air. Ramos seemed to tumble in slow motion before coming down head-first and unmoving.

The bull tried to stop its charge but momentum and damage from bullets finally left it unable to control its huge weight.
Its head dipped and it cartwheeled onto its back. It righted itself and prepared for another charge. Bosch crawled to his
gun, picked it up and aimed. But the animal’s front legs faltered and it went down. Then it slowly turned onto its side and
lay unmoving, save for the hesitant rise and fall of its chest. Then that stopped, too.

Aguila and Bosch took off for Ramos at the same time. They huddled over him but did not move him. He was on his back and his
eyes were still open and caked with dirt. His head lolled at an unnatural angle. His neck appeared to have been cleanly broken
in the fall. In the distance they could hear the sound of one of the Hueys flying their way. Bosch stood up and could see
its spotlight sweeping over the scrubland, looking for them.

“I’m going to the tunnel,” Bosch said. “When they land, come in with backup.”

“No,” Aguila said. “I’m going with you.”

He said it in a way that invited no debate. He leaned down and took the radio off Ramos’s belt and picked up the flashlight.
He gave the radio to Bosch.

“Tell them we are both going.”

Bosch radioed Corvo.

“Where’s Ramos?”

“We just lost Ramos. Me and Aguila are going to the tunnel. Alert the militia at EnviroBreed that we are coming through. We
don’t want to get shot.”

He turned the radio off before Corvo could reply and dropped it on the ground next to the dead DEA agent. The other helicopter
was almost on them now. They ran to the barn, their weapons held up and ready, and moved slowly around the outside until they
were at the front and could see the bay door had been slid open. Wide enough for a man to pass through.

They went through and crouched in the darkness. Aguila began to sweep the flashlight’s beam around. It was a cavernous barn
with stalls running along both sides to the back. There were crates used for trucking bulls to arenas stacked in the back
along with towers made of bales of hay. Bosch saw a line of overhead lights running down the center of the building. He looked
around and found the switch near the bay door.