The Black Echo

whole scenario Bosch and Wish had spun for him.
    “We are going to have to get them from underground,” Bosch said, his hands holding the steering wheel as if he were driving. “We’d never get that door open fast enough.”
    Bosch idly looked to his left, up Wilshire. He saw a white LTD with police wheels parked at the curb a block away. It was parked next to a fire hydrant and there were two figures in it. He still had company.

    ***

    Bosch and Wish stood next to his car, which was parked on the second level of the garage facing the retainer wall at the south end. The garage had been virtually empty for more than an hour, but the drab concrete enclosure smelled of exhaust fumes and burning brakes. Bosch was sure the brakes smell was from his car. The stop-and-go tail from Little Saigon had taken its toll on the replacement car. From their position they could look across Wilshire and west a half block to the vault showroom of Beverly Hills Safe & Lock. Farther down Wilshire the sky was pink and the setting sun a deep orange. Evening lights were coming on in the city and traffic was thinning out. Bosch looked east up Wilshire and could see the white LTD parked at the curb, its occupants shadows behind the tinted windshield.
    At eight o’clock a procession of three cars, the last a Beverly Hills patrol car, came up the ramp and cut across the empty parking spaces to where Bosch and Wish stood at the wall.
    “Well, if our perps have their lookout in any of these high rises and they saw this little parade, you can bet he is pulling them out now,” Bosch said.
    Rourke and four other men got out of the two unmarked cars. Bosch could tell by the suits that three of them were agents. The fourth man’s suit was a little too worn, its pockets baggy like Bosch’s. He carried a cardboard tube. Harry figured him for the DWP supe Wish had said was coming. Three Beverly Hills uniforms, one with captain’s bars on his collar, got out of the patrol car. The captain was also carrying a rolled tube of paper.
    Everybody converged at Bosch’s car and used its hood as the meeting table. Rourke made some quick introductions. The three from BHPD were there because the operation was in their jurisdiction. Interdepartmental courtesy, Rourke said. They were also on hand because Beverly Hills Safe & Lock had filed a design plan with the local police department’s commercial security division. They would only observe the meeting, Rourke said, and be called on later if their department was needed for backup. Two of the FBI agents, Hanlon and Houck, would work the overnight surveillance with Bosch and Wish. Rourke wanted a view of Beverly Hills Safe & Lock from at least two angles. The third agent was the FBI’s SWAT coordinator. And the last man was Ed Gearson, a DWP underground facilities supervisor.
    “Okay, let’s set the battle plans,” Rourke announced at the end of the introductions. He took the cardboard tube from Gearson without asking and slid out a rolled blueprint. “This is a DWP schematic print for this area. It has all the utility lines, the tunnels and culverts. It tells us exactly what is down there.”
    He unfurled the grayish map with smeared blue lines on it across the hood. The three Beverly Hills cops anchored the other end with their hands. It was getting dark in the garage and the SWAT man, an agent named Heller, held a penlight with a surprisingly wide and bright beam over the drawing. Rourke took a pen out of his shirt pocket, pulled on it until it telescoped into a pointer.
    “Okay, we are… right…” Before he could find the spot Gearson reached his arm into the light and put a finger on the map. Rourke brought his pen point over to the spot. “Yes, right here,” he said and gave Gearson a don’t-fuck-with-me look. The DWP man’s shoulders seemed to stoop a little more in his threadbare jacket.
    Everyone around the car leaned in closer over the hood to study the location. “Beverly Hills Safe & Lock is here,” Rourke said. “The actual vault is here. Can we see your blueprint, Captain Orozco?”
    Orozco, who was built like an inverted pyramid, broad shoulders over thin hips, unrolled his drawing across the top of the DWP print. It was a copy of the drawing Avery III had shown Bosch and Wish earlier.
    “Three thousand square feet of vault space,” said Orozco, indicating the vault area with his hand. “Small private boxes along the sides and free-standing closets down the middle. If they