The Narrows

be."
    She looked back at the flaming trailer bed. We were too close. I could feel the heat of the fire. But I still wasn't sure she should be moving.
    "Rachel, why don't you lie back down? I think you have a concussion. You might have other injuries."
    "Yeah, I think that's a good idea."
    She put her head down on the ground and just looked up at the sky. I decided that wasn't a bad position and did the same. It was like we were at the beach or something. If it had been night we could have counted the stars.
    Before I could hear them coming, I felt the approach of the helicopters. A deep vibration in my chest made me look to the southern sky and I saw the two air force choppers coming over the top of Titanic Rock. I weakly raised an arm and waved them in.

CHAPTER 34
    What the hell happened out there?" Special Agent Randal Alpert's face was rigid and almost purple. He had been waiting for them in the hangar at Nellis when the helicopter landed. His political instincts had apparently told him not to go to the scene himself. At all costs he had to be able to distance himself from the blowback that would rise from the explosion in the desert and possibly reach all the way to Washington.
    Rachel Walling and Cherie Dei stood in the huge hangar and braced for the onslaught. Rachel didn't answer his question because she thought it was only the opener on a tirade. She was reacting slowly, her head still a bit fuzzy from the blast.
    "Agent Walling, I asked you a question!"
    "He had rigged the trailer," Cherie Dei said. "He knew she-"
    "I asked her, not you," Alpert barked. "I want Agent Walling to tell me exactly why she could not follow orders and how this whole thing has gotten completely fucked up beyond recognition."
    Rachel raised her hands palms out as if to signify there was not a damn thing she could have done about what happened out there in the desert.
    "We were going to wait for the ERT," she said. "As Agent Dei instructed. We were on the periphery of the location and that's when we realized it smelled like there was a body in there and then we thought maybe there could be someone alive in there. Somebody hurt."
    "And how the hell did you get that idea simply because you smelled a dead body?"
    "Bosch thought he heard something."
    "Oh, here we go, the old cry for help routine."
    "No, he did. But it was the wind, I guess. Out there it picks up. The windows were left open. It must have created a sound that he heard."
    "And what about you? Did you hear it?"
    "No. I didn't."
    Alpert looked at Dei and then back at Rachel. She could feel his eyes burning through her. But she knew it was a good story and she wasn't going to blink. She and Bosch had worked it out. Bosch was beyond Alpert's reach. If she was acting on Bosch's alarm she could not be faulted either. Alpert could rant and rave but could do nothing more than that.
    "You know what the problem with your story is? It's with your first word. We. You said we. There was no we. You were given an assignment of maintaining a cover on Bosch. Not joining him in the investigation. Not joining him in his car and driving up there. Not questioning witnesses together and entering that trailer together." "I understand that, but given the circumstances I decided it was in the best interest of the investigation to pool our knowledge and resources. Quite frankly, Agent Alpert, Bosch was the one who found that place. We wouldn't have what we have right now if not for him."
    "Don't kid yourself, Agent Walling. We would have gotten there."
    "I know that. But velocity was a factor. You said so yourself after the morning briefing. The director was going before the cameras. I wanted to push the case so that he would have as much information as possible."
    "Well, forget about that now. Now we don't know what we have. He postponed the news conference and has given us until noon tomorrow to figure out what we have out there."
    Cherie Dei cleared her voice and risked intruding again.
    "That's impossible," she said. "That's a well-done crispy critter out there. They're using multiple bags to get it out of there. ID and cause of death are going to take weeks, if an ID and cause of death are even possible. Luckily, it appears that Agent Walling was able to obtain a DNA sampling from the body and that would speed things but we have no comparative evidence. We-"
    "Maybe you weren't listening ten seconds ago," Alpert said, "but we don't have weeks. We've got less than twenty-four hours."
    He turned