The Black Echo

would they dig a hundred-yard tunnel when they could dig a hundred-footer here?”
    Gearson liked holding court, the idea of knowing more than the silk suits and uniforms around him. Having finished his speech, he rocked back on his heels, a satisfied look on his face. Bosch knew the man was probably correct on every detail.
    “What about earth displacement?” Bosch asked him. “These guys are digging a tunnel through dirt and rock, concrete. Where do they get rid of it? How?”
    “Bosch, Mr. Gearson is not a detective,” Rourke said. “I doubt that he knows every nuance of-”
    “Easy,” Gearson said. “The floors of the main lines like Wilshire and Robertson are graded three degrees to center. There is always water running down the center, even most days during a drought. It might not be raining up top but water flows, you know. You’d be surprised how much. Either it’s runoff from the reservoirs or commercial use or both. Your fire department gets a call, where you think the water goes when they are done puttin’ the fire out? So what I am saying is, if they had enough water they could use it to move the displaced earth or whatever you want to call it.”
    “It’s got to be tons.” Hanlon spoke for the first time.
    “But it’s not several tons at once. You said they took days to dig this. You spread it out over days and the runoff could handle it. Now, if they are in one of the service tunnels they’d have to figure a way to get water through there, down to your main line. I’d check your fire hydrants in the area. You got one leaking or had a report of somebody opening one up, that’d be your boys.”
    One of the uniforms leaned to Orozco’s ear and said something. Orozco leaned over the hood and raised his finger above the map. Then he poked it down on a blue line. “We had a hydrant vandalized here two nights ago.”
    “Somebody opened it up,” the uniform who had whispered to the captain said, “and used a bolt cutter to cut the chain that holds the cap. They took the cap with them, and it took the fire department an hour to get out here with a replacement.”
    “That would be a lot of water,” Gearson said. “That would have taken care of some of your earth displacement.”
    He looked at Bosch and smiled. And Bosch smiled back. He liked when pieces of the puzzle began to fit.
    “Before that, let’s see, Saturday night it was, we had an arson,” Orozco said. “A little boutique in behind the Stock Building off Rincon.”
    Gearson looked at the spot Orozco pointed to on the blueprint as being the location of the boutique. He put his own finger on the fire hydrant location. “The water from both of those things would have gone into three street catches, here, here and here,” he said, moving his hand deftly over the gray paper. “These two drain to this line. The other drains here.”
    The investigators looked at the two drainage lines. One ran parallel to Wilshire, behind the J. C. Stock Building. The other ran perpendicular to Wilshire, a straight offshoot, and next to the building.
    “Either one and we’re still looking at, what, a hundred-foot tunnel?” Wish said.
    “At least,” Gearson said. “If they had a straight shot. They might’ve hit ground utilities or hard rock and had to divert some. Doubt any tunnel down there could be a straight shot.”
    The SWAT expert tugged Rourke’s cuff and the two walked away from the crowd for a whispered conversation. Bosch looked at Wish and softly said, “They’re not going to go in.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “This isn’t Vietnam. Nobody has to go down there. If Franklin and Delgado and anybody else are down there in one of these lines, there’s no way to go in safely and unannounced. They hold all the advantages. They’d know we’re coming.”
    She studied his face but didn’t say anything.
    “It would be the wrong move,” Bosch said. “We know they’re armed and probably have trips set up. We know they’re killers.”

    ***

    Rourke came back to the gathering around the car hood and asked Gearson to wait in one of the bureau cars while he finished up with the investigators. The DWP man walked to the car with his head down, disappointed he was no longer part of the plan.
    “We’re not going in after them,” Rourke said after Gearson shut the car door. “Too dangerous. They have weapons, explosives. We have no element of surprise. It adds up to heavy casualties for us… So, we trap them. We let things