The Black Ice (hb-2)

thirty seconds they were on the ground next to one of the other helicopters.
    In the yard in front of the bunker, the prisoners were kneeling while some of the militia officers used plastic disposable handcuffs to bind their wrists. Others were making a stack of confiscated weapons. There were a couple of Uzis and AK-47s but mostly shotguns and M-16s. Ramos was standing with the militia captain, who had his radio to his ear.
    Bosch did not see a recognizable face among the prisoners. He left Aguila and went to Ramos.
    “Where’s Zorrillo?”
    Ramos held up his hand in a do-not-disturb gesture and didn’t answer. He was looking at the captain. Corvo walked up then, too. There was a report over the captain’s radio and then he looked at Ramos and said, “
Nada
.”
    “Okay, nothing’s happening at EnviroBreed,” Ramos said. “Nobody in or out since this went down here. The militia is maintaining a watch over there.”
    Ramos saw Corvo and in a lower voice, meant just for him, said, “We’ve got a problem. We’ve lost one.”
    “Yeah, we saw him,” Bosch said. “He was in the Jeep and headed southeast out of-”
    He stopped when he realized what Ramos had meant.
    “Who’d we lose?” Corvo asked.
    “Kirth, one of the CLETs. But that’s not the whole problem.”
    Bosch stepped back from the two men. He knew he had no place in this.
    “What the fuck do you mean?” Corvo said.
    “Come on, I’ll show you.”
    The two agents headed off around the hacienda. Bosch trailed at a discreet distance behind. A covered porch ran the length of the rear of the house. Ramos crossed it to an open door. A CLET agent, his mask pulled up to expose his blood– and sweat-streaked face, was on the floor three feet inside the door. It looked to Bosch like four rounds: two in the upper chest, just above the vest, and two in the neck. A nice tight pattern, all of them through-and-through wounds. Blood was still leaking out from beneath the body into a pool. The dead agent’s eyes and mouth were open. He had died quickly.
    Bosch could see the problem. It was friendly fire. Kirth had been hit with fire from one of the 636s. The wounds were too big, too devastating and bunched too close together to have come from the weapons stacked near the prisoners.
    “Looks like he came running out this back door when he heard the shooting,” Ramos was saying. “Ground Two was already in a crossfire. Someone from Two’s unit must have opened on the door, hit Kirth here.”
    “God damn it!” Corvo yelled. Then in a lower voice, he said, “All right, come over here, Ramos.”
    They huddled together and this time Bosch could not hear what was said but didn’t have to. He knew what they would do. Careers were at stake here.
    “Got it,” Ramos said, returning to a normal voice and breaking away from Corvo.
    “Good,” Corvo said. “When you are done with that, I want you to get to a secure line and call L.A.Operations. We are going to need Public Info Officers down here and up there to work on this ASAP. The media is going to be crawling all over this. From all over.”
    “You got it.”
    Corvo started to go into the house but came back.
    “Another thing, keep the Mexicans away from this.”
    He meant the militia. Ramos nodded and then Corvo stalked off. Ramos looked over at Bosch standing in the shadows of the porch. A silent acknowledgement passed between them. Bosch knew that the media would be told that Kirth had been fatally wounded by Zorrillo’s men. Nobody would say anything about friendly fire.
    “You got a problem?” Ramos said.
    “I don’t have a problem with anything.”
    “Good. Then I’m not going to have to worry about you. Right, Bosch?”
    Bosch stepped to the door.
    “Ramos, where’s Zorrillo?”
    “We’re still searching. Still a lot of space in these buildings to cover. All I can tell you is we’ve cleared the hacienda and he isn’t here. Only three inside are dead and he ain’t one of them. So no one’s talking. But your cop killer’s in there, Bosch. The man with the tears.”
    Bosch silently stepped around Ramos and the body and into the hacienda. He was careful not to step into the blood. As he passed, he looked down into the dead man’s eyes. They were already filming and looked like chips of dirty ice.
    He followed a hallway to the front of the house, where he heard voices from a doorway at the bottom of the stairs in the front entry. As he approached he could see the room beyond was an