The cheering for Silvestri’s expert kill was deafening. And it did not let up as the matador made a circuit around the ring, his arms up to receive the applause. Roses, pillows, women’s high-heeled shoes showered down into the ring. The bullfighter beamed in the adulation. The noise was so loud that it was quite some time before Bosch realized that the pager on his belt was sounding its call to him.
28
At nine o’clock Bosch and Aguila turned off Avenida Cristobal Colon onto a perimeter road that skirted Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada Aeropuerto Internacional. The roadway passed several old quonset-hut hangars and then a larger grouping of newer structures. On one of these was a sign that said Aero Carga. The huge bay doors had been spread a few feet and the opening was lit from the inside. It was their destination, a DEA front. Bosch pulled into the lot in front and parked near several other cars. He noticed that most of them had California plates.
As soon as he stepped out of the Caprice he was approached by four DEA types in blue plastic windbreakers. He showed his ID and evidently passed muster after one of them consulted a clipboard.
“And you?” the clipboard man said to Aguila.
“He’s with me,” Bosch said.
“We have you down as a solo entry, Detective Bosch. Now we have a problem.”
“I guess I forgot to RSVP that I’d bring a date,” Bosch said.
“It’s not very funny, Detective Bosch.”
“Of course not. But he’s my partner. He stays with me.”
Clipboard had a distressed look on his face. He was an Anglo with a ruddy complexion and hair that had been bleached almost white by the sun. He looked as though he had been watching the border a long time. He turned to look back at the hangar, as if hoping for direction on how to handle this. On the back of his windbreaker Bosch saw the large yellowDEA letters.
“Better get Ramos,” Bosch said. “If my partner goes, I go. Then where’s the integrity of the operation’s security?”
He looked over at Aguila, who was standing stiffly with the three other agents around him like bouncers ready to toss somebody out of a nightclub on the Sunset Strip.
“Think about it,” Bosch continued. “Anybody who’s come this far has to go the distance. Otherwise, you got someone outside the circle. Out there and unaccounted for. Go ask Ramos.”
Clipboard hesitated again, then told everybody to stay cool and took a radio from the pocket of his jacket. He radioed to someone called Staff Leader that there was a problem in the lot. Then everybody stood around for a few moments in silence. Bosch looked over at Aguila and when their eyes met he winked. Then he saw Ramos and Corvo, the agent from L.A., walking briskly toward them.
“What’s this shit, Bosch,” Ramos started before he got to the car. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve compromised the whole fucking operation. I gave explicit instru-”
“He’s my partner on this, Ramos. He knows what I know. We are together on this. If he’s out, then so am I. And when we leave, I go across the border. To L.A. I don’t know where he goes. How will that hold with your theory on who can be trusted?”
In the light from the hangar, Bosch could see the pulse beating in an artery on Ramos’s neck.
“See,” Bosch said, “if you let him leave, you are trusting him. So, if you trust him, you might as well let him stay.”
“Fuck you, Bosch.”
Corvo put his hand on Ramos’s arm and stepped forward.
“Bosch, if he fucks up or this operation in any way becomes compromised, I will make it known. You know what I mean? It’ll be known in L.A. that you brought this guy in.”
He made a signal across the car to the others and they stepped away from Aguila. The moonlight reflected on Corvo’s face and Bosch saw the scar that split his beard on the right side. He wondered how many times the DEA agent would be telling the story of the knife fight tonight.
“And another thing,” Ramos threw in. “He goes in naked. We only have one more vest. That’s for your ass, Bosch. So if he gets hit, it’s on you.”
“Right,” Bosch said. “I get it. No matter what goes wrong, it’s my ass. I got it. I also have a vest in my trunk. He can use yours. I like my own.”
“Briefing’s at twenty-two hundred,” Ramos said as he walked back toward the hangar.
Corvo followed and Bosch and Aguila fell in behind him. The other agents brought up the rear. Inside the cavernous hangar Bosch saw there were three black helicopters sitting side by side in the bay area. There were several men, most in black jumpsuits, milling about and drinking coffee from white cups. Two of the helicopters were wide-bodied personnel transport craft. Bosch recognized them. They were UH-1Ns. Hueys. The distinctive whop-whop of their rotors would forever be the sound of Vietnam to him. The third craft was smaller and sleeker. It looked like a craft manufactured for commercial use, like a news or police chopper, but it had been converted into a gunship. Bosch recognized the gun turret mounted on the right side of the copter’s body. Beneath the cockpit another mount held an array of equipment, including a spotlight and night-vision sensor. The men in the black jumpsuits were stripping the white numbers and letters off the tail sections of the craft. They were preparing for a total blackout, a night assault.
Bosch noticed Corvo come up next to him.
“We call it the Lynx,” he said, nodding to the smallest of the three craft. “Mostly use ’ em in Central and South America ops, but we snagged this one on its way down. It’s for night work. You’ve got total night vision set up-infrared, heat-pattern displays. It will be the in-air command post tonight.”
Bosch just nodded. He was not as impressed with the hardware as Corvo was. The DEA supervisor seemed more animated than during their meeting at the Code 7. His dark eyes were darting around the hangar, taking it all in. Bosch realized that he probably missed fieldwork. He was stuck in L.A. while guys like Ramos got to play the war games.
“And that’s where you’re going to be, you and your partner,” Corvo said, nodding at the Lynx. “With me. Nice and safe. Observers.”
“You in charge of this show, or is Ramos?”
“I’m in charge.”
“Hope so.” Then, looking at the war chopper, Bosch said, “Tell me something, Corvo, we want Zorrillo alive, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, then, when we get him, what’s the plan? He’s a Mexican citizen. You can’t take him over the border. You just going to give him to the Mexicans? He’ll be running the penitentiary they put him in within a month. That is, if they put him in a pen.”
It was a problem every cop in southern California had come up against. Mexico refused to extradite its citizens to the United States for crimes committed there. But it would prosecute them at home. The problem was that it was well known that the country’s biggest drug dealers turned penitentiary stays into hotel visits. Women, drugs, alcohol and other comforts could be had as long as the money was paid. One story was that a convicted drug lord had actually taken over the warden’s office and residence at a prison in Juarez. He had paid the warden $100,000 for the privilege, about four times what the warden made in a year. Now the warden was an inmate at the prison.
“I know what you’re saying,” Corvo said. “But don’t worry about it. We got a plan for that. Only things you have to worry about are your own ass and your partner’s. You better watch him good. And you better get some coffee. It’s going to be a long night.”
Bosch rejoined Aguila, who was standing at the workbench where the coffee had been set up. They nodded at some of the agents who were milling about the bench but the gestures were rarely returned. They were the invited uninvited. From where they stood, they could see into a suite of offices off the aircraft bays. There were several Mexicans in green uniforms sitting at desks and tables, drinking coffee and waiting.